Blood Ties
by WElle
Summary: 2nd story in the Legacy series. Set between Shadow and Hell House. Sequel to Legacy. They may have escaped the Daevas in Chicago, but they didn't kill them. And they should have.
1. Chapter 1

Dean closes the bathroom door behind him. 3AM and Sam is finally snoring softly. He flips open and closes his cell phone at least five times before he finally dials. Her voice is groggy when she answers the phone and his heart beats harder, worried he's making a mistake.

"Rayne." She clears her throat of sleep.

"Hey." Dean concentrates to keep the waver from his voice.

"Dean." He can hear she's snapped awake, alert. "Is everything alright?"

"Uh, yeah. No. Um," It infuriates him, this stammer, tremor, inability to be his cocksure self when he's speaking to her. Not that he does, speak to her. Not that he's spoken to her since he and Sam left San Francisco three months ago. Sam speaks to her all the time, of course. "We're in Seattle. Can you come?"

"Are you hurt? Sam?"

"No. Not really. Nothing serious. Why? Does it matter?" He can't help it, the challenge creeps into his voice whenever he so much as thinks about her.

Silence. Just for a beat. He almost smiles thinking maybe he's thrown _her_ off balance for a change. He half hopes that maybe she's searching for a reason to back out, not come. That would be something he could hold against her. The other half hopes she won't.

"Of course not. Do I need to cancel my surgeries today or can I come out tonight?" He can hear her moving around now. Getting out of bed.

"Tonight's fine." He's relieved and annoyed and unsettled in a way that he's been for weeks now.

She must have woken her husband up because he hears Nick's voice, tiredly mumbling about plane tickets and packing. "I'll be there tonight. Where are you staying?"

He gives her the information and hangs up, looks at himself in the bathroom mirror again. Sam did a reasonably good job of patching him up after the Daevas, but the wounds aren't even three days old and they still hurt like a bitch. Everything just hurts like a bitch since Chicago. Since he'd sent his Dad off. Since he'd incurred the wrath of sullen-not-quite-silent-treatment Sam for sending Dad off.

Calling Lilly, summoning her, is the last thing Dean wants to do. As a general rule. But it's been three days and Sam is still brooding and hasn't even called her himself, which up to now had been his brother's new favourite hobby. He thinks he knows why. Sam's probably feeling guilty. They hadn't confronted John about her. Their sister. Their mother's long lost, long abandoned, daughter. The one that John had clearly known about for years but kept secret, along with all the crazy details about her life and Mary's. But what could they have said in that tiny space of time they'd finally had with their father? _Uh, yeah Dad, we know you've got to run before the shadow thing comes down and kills us all, but uh, how do we say this?...we have a sister? What's up with that?_

Dean figures, tells himself anyway, that they could kill two birds with one stone this way. Sammy would get to see Lilly again and maybe snap out of it. And more importantly, if John Winchester had shown his face again, maybe her father, the one equally as guilty of keeping the secret, the one who had also suddenly disappeared into thin air, would too. And they could finally start getting some answers. That's what he tells himself, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

They drive in silence for days, just trying to get as far away from Chicago, and presumably their father, as possible. Sam doesn't know what to think. He's relieved his father is alive, relieved beyond words his father doesn't hate him, misses him. He's furious at having let him go. He's angry with Dean for insisting they go their separate ways, but he can't keep it up.

_I want us to be a family._

It's the first time in his life that Sam hears Dean actually ask for something, for himself. Sam supposes he could count Dean's coming to get him at Stanford, but it's really the same thing, isn't it? And anyway, two requests in one lifetime instead of one, like there's a difference. Sam finally understands that all his brother wants, all he's ever wanted for himself, is his family. Around him. It's like all the affection, all the love, all the security he's ever had is tied up in these three bodies and their proximity to each other. And still, after all these months, finally having them in one place, Dean sets aside what he wants for whatever greater good he perceives is more worthy. So, as angry as Sam is for Dean's complicity in his father's demands, for letting the old man go, Sam can't really be all that angry for long because just like always, Dean puts himself second.

It makes Sam feel like a colossal idiot. Selfish. Even more angry for feeling selfish. Just because Dean doesn't demand things doesn't mean that he's not entitled to want what he wants, does it? What does he want anymore anyway? Revenge then a return to his normal life? Seeing his father again throws it all up in the air, confuses him. And even when he's sure, his wants pale when he looks at Dean. He wavers between guilt and duty to the brother who's never put himself first, who's never so much as voiced his wishes, let alone acted on them, and resentment for the same thing. For feeling like he doesn't measure up to Dean's martyrdom to John's cause. Back and forth. It makes him uncharacteristically quiet.

They finally stop in Seattle. No job has brought them here, no leads are popping out and Sam's grateful just to rest for a day or two. He wants to call Lilly. They aren't that far from her. He wants to tell her everything that's happened, but for the first time since he's met her it occurs to him that talking to Lilly, connecting to her, hurts Dean.

_I want it to be like it was._

_It will never be like it was. I don't want it to._

Colossal idiot is right. Selfish little bastard is right. Dean's resistance to her finally makes sense to Sam. She threatens Dean's sense of family, even though, technically, she's part of it. These last months, Dean's irritation every time Sam has been on the phone with her, Dean's shutting down every time Sam tries to talk about her, it finally makes sense and makes Sam feel like an ass. So he tries to make amends in the only way he can think of right now. He tries to take a page out of Dean's book and _not_ talk. Not push Dean to talk, not call Lilly and spill his guts to her. But he's not used to this silence, to hearing only his inside voice. It makes him moody, sullen and it makes the atmosphere in the Impala worse and even more tense.

So to say that Sam is surprised when, on their second night in Seattle, Dean doesn't jump at the knock on the door, doesn't look shocked to see Lilly on the other side of it, is a freaking understatement.


	3. Chapter 3

It's times like this Lilly wishes she smoked. It seems like the thing to do in situations where one finds oneself pacing outside the motel room door of one's long lost brothers. One of whom is not so much in love with the idea of a sister. It's 7pm and a persistent Seattle drizzle threatens to soak her to the skin if she doesn't pull herself together and just knock on the fucking door soon.

She's been up since 3AM, since Dean's, _Dean's_, phone call. Sam she's used to hearing from lately. Sam is easy. He's lovely and kind, he's curious and open hearted in a way that makes having to deal with the repercussions of their existence almost good. But this is the first time Dean has reached out to her. Ever. Well, ever seems a strong word. The first time in the three months that she's known him. The older of her two little brothers. The one her almost two year old daughter Issabelle has a toddler crush on. The one who can't be in the same room with her without seemingly wanting to jump out of his chair and holler at her until she disappears.

The thing of it is, she won't. Even in this short time, with all the animosity, she's grown attached to him. To both of them. They are hers, after all. Her flesh and blood.

She takes a deep breath, curses herself once more for being such a baby and knocks on the door. Of course Dean answers. _Here we go._

"Hi." She stands in the doorway.

"Hi. Come in." Dean steps back and she walks in, brushing the accreted rain from her thin coat. She sees Sam's stunned face and smiles warmly at him, "Hi Sam."

The youngest stands awkwardly, she thinks. It takes her a second to realize he's surprised, obviously without a clue that she was coming. She steps into his clumsy hug, one that is devoid of the warmth he usually exudes and she knows this isn't going to be good.

"You didn't know I was coming?" They detach from each other, almost gratefully, like children who've been made to hug by parents that insist that they get along. She turns her attention to Dean, who clearly finds something on the wall to the right of her head infinitely more fascinating than his siblings.

Silence. "Right then." She notices for the first time that both men are sporting vicious scratch marks on their faces. "Is this the worst of it?" She waves her fingers around the area of Sam's and then Dean's faces.

"You flew to Seattle for a couple of scratches?" Sam still seems stunned to see her, but pulls himself together quickly enough and turns on Dean, "You? You called her here? You?"

"Yeah, Sam," great, Lilly thinks, Dean's already defensive, this bodes well, "I figured out how to use that new fangled phone doo-hickey."

"Shut up, Dean." Sam snaps. "What's going on?" His angry attention turns back to Lilly now and she's sooooo happy she came.

"Dean called last night, this morning, whatever. He asked me to come. Said you were a bit hurt, which seems a bit understated. So I came." She tries her best serene face, "Nothing to get excited about."

"Sorry." Sam looks at her, the apology not quite reaching his eyes, "I just…I wasn't expecting you."

"Evidently." She leads him, not so much by the arm, but in a commanding way she's learned to use with her patients toward a small kitchenette table. "Let me look at your face."

"We saw dad." Dean blurts out. "In Chicago. Three days ago. We led him into a trap set up by a demon, THE demon, we think."

Concern overshadows everything else, instantly, "Is he alright?" She looks back and forth between them, "Are you alright?"

"Depends what you mean." Sam almost huffs out a laugh, staring pointedly at Dean.

"Is he alive?" She cuts with her voice, brokering no sarcasm or distraction.

"Yeah." Dean says and rubs his own wounds. Flinching.

"Where is he?"

"We don't know." They say in unison. She just stares quietly until Sam finally looks to his feet and answers. "He thinks it's too dangerous for us to be together."

"What did this?" She points again to their wounds.

"Daevas. Summoned by the demon, they're these sort of shadow…" Dean begins.

"I know what daevas are." She cuts him off, "What happened to them?"

"I don't know. We only just managed to get away from them." Sam answers.

"You didn't kill them?" She reaches for her phone, hits a well worn speed dial button.

"No. We couldn't even _see_ them." Dean snarls.

Lilly puts her hand up to silence him and speaks into the receiver, "We have a serious problem."


	4. Chapter 4

Lilly speaks swiftly and definitively into her phone. She's calling in the troops. The Daughters. One of them anyway. Dean watches her pace the floor. Her strides are purposeful, not lost, and as urgent as her tone is it is equally controlled and calm.

She covers the receiver and fires quick, direct questions at him, "Who were the daevas summoned against?"

"Dad, we think."

"Not you?"

"No. They attacked us later, once we were with Dad, but not while we were tied up."

"Tied up?"

"We were bait."

Something like an instant of terror passes over her eyes, but Dean sees her control it instantly.

"How many?"

Dean shrugs anxiously, "We never saw. Two?"

"More than…say….four?"

"I don't think so."

She turns back to her call and sends orders quickly to the person on the other line and snaps her phone shuts.

"You were bait?" She sits across from them at the tiny motel table and her eyes bore into Dean. Her tone is incredulous and worried and Dean wars between being defensive and something else he can't quite place, something reacting to her concern, which makes him even more uncomfortable. He goes with defensive.

"We thought the trap was for us, at first. Actually at first, we thought we'd just found the demon…" He scrubs his face, again eliciting a stinging painful hiss, but he continues from the beginning, Sam filling in details here and there. They both end with guilt and anger at themselves for being sucked into Meg's plan.

"You couldn't have known." She brushes off their self recriminations and continues, "Do you know where he is?"

"No." Dean looks to the ground again. It feels like such loss to admit it. Such defeat. Another in a grinding line of them since he pulled Sam out of his burning apartment, months ago.

Lilly's voice brings him around again, "He's good at this, isn't he? Disappearing?"

"Obviously." Sam snorts. Dean didn't want to let his father go. He didn't want to split up again after seeing him for the first time in months. He knows Sam is angry and hurt and his own heart aches again in disappointment, but there was no choice.Each shot at his father, each reference to being apart stabs at Dean a little, but before he has a chance to shoot back, Lilly is all business and cuts Sam's reaction off at the knees.

"Then they probably don't know where he is either. But we need to warn him. If they're not dead, they won't stop until they've killed him."

"No, it's fine." Sam stands, looking a bit desperate. "We destroyed Meg's altar."

"Whose?"

"Meg was the one controlling them and she's dead. The daevas attacked and dropped her out of a 7 storey window." Sam's eyes flit between Dean and Lilly and suddenly Dean's stomach drops as low as he thinks his brother's is.

"Then why did they come after you at your hotel? _After _Meg had been dispatched?" Lilly's response has Dean searching his pockets for his phone.

"I don't understand." Sam shakes his head.

"Make the call. He needs to keep moving." Dean nods at her command. He knows he won't get his father, leaves an urgent message he knows will go unanswered.

"Sam, if they weren't being controlled anymore they would have attacked you at the warehouse. They wouldn't have followed you in stealth, they wouldn't have waited until you were with your father again." The blood drains from Dean's face as she finishes her thought, "If this Meg is dead, something else is controlling them."

Dean's heart lurches into his throat. He and Sam share a glare they both know is silent panic language for The Demon.


	5. Chapter 5

There is nothing to do until morning, when the other Daughter arrives. They wait for Nick to call back. He's at the Legacy house searching for how to call the Daevas, the ones already loose. Sam's head aches and his wounds sting and his mind is numb after all the discussion of their next steps. It's almost 2AM. Dean has dozed off at Lilly's insistence he take some painkillers and get some rest, convincing him finally that he would fight better the next day if he stopped for just a little while.

Sam stares at her from his bed. He knows she's been up close to 24 hours but she clicks away at his laptop as though she were fresh and focused and had all the energy in the world. Her legs are folded in the chair, her knees bent and wedged between her chest and the rickety table. She chews her thumb in a way that Sam does too when he's concentrating. He looks over at Dean's back and sees it move with the regular breathing that means his brother is asleep. Sam can't sleep, despite Lilly's equally adamant insistence that he do as well. His mind is racing and he needs to talk. He's been silent for days, resisting for days the urge to call her, to unleash his thoughts to Dean and now he's too tired to have any control over his mouth.

"I don't understand." His voice cracks slightly from fatigue. She isn't startled, moves her head up to look at him slowly, letting him talk. She always seems to just know what to do. "We wrecked the altar and they went after her. She lost control of them." Sam insists.

"What was on the altar?" She asks patiently. Sam lists the objects, with a memory that he knows Dean likes to think of as photo freakish.

"No generator, no coil, no anything magnetic?"

"No." Sam is confused. She stretches her legs and walks toward him, stopping at the side of Dean's bed to recover him with the comforter that had slipped to the floor. The move thickens Sam's throat. The simple gesture, the simple intimate kindness she shows his brother, so at odds with their waking relationship. He prays for a silent instant that it means there will be some peace between them. He wishes Dean were awake to witness it, to feel a gentle sweet gesture from someone.

She swats Sam's legs and he sits himself up in bed, making room for her at the end. "Sam, objects have no intrinsic power unless they are able to generate or disrupt fields of energy. And I mean real fields, magnetic and electric. The altar isn't a source of power over the Daevas. Objects like candles and crosses and Zorastrian squiggles in blood only work because demons are superstitious too."

"But they stopped obeying Meg after it was wrecked."

"I don't think Meg was ever controlling them. They may have thought so and so they attacked her because symbolically the tie between them was broken. But they are wild animals, Sam. If they were truly not under someone's control they would have run loose across the city. They would have killed anything in their path. It would have been...noticed."

"So how is the demon controlling them?"

"Probably sound. Sub or super sonic. A lot of them communicate that way."

"Like a demonic dog whistle?" Sam looks at Lilly as though she were an XFile. She smiles patiently, "Something like that."

Sam is animated now as they debate what constitutes the "Supernatural". He listens as she explains what she's spent her life learning, hunting and the questions pour out of him.

"These things we chase, we hunt, they are real. They are not necessarily corporeal, but they exist in this world on this plane, regardless of whatever romanticized notions people have. They are bound to the physical world and so they are governed by physical law. They have limits, like we do, different than ours, but not counter to nature or physics. We just need to know them."

"How are Daevas invisible then, how is that physically possible?" He asks.

"They can't be seen partly because they're skin reflects light in a completely different way than ours does, but mostly because they move very quickly." Sam is incredulous, but he listens, "There are thousands of things, that are able to disguise themselves. That seem invisible to us. Think of chameleons, they manipulate the refractive properties of their skin with their hormones. Daevas are just creatures, Sam. Animals. We've never caught one so we don't know what they're exact nature is, but we have samples of their blood and all of our evidence indicates that they are probably mammals."

Sam shakes his head. His mind is winding up like a baseball pitcher's arm, questions instead of baseballs about to be hurled, when Dean snorts rolls over, wincing in his sleep as his face stretches the wrong way on the pillow. Even in sleep he can't find rest, Sam thinks. "He's going to blame himself for this. For letting them go." Sam says sadly, his eyes roaming protectively over his brother.

"I know." Lilly's voice is soft. "And I know it does no good to tell him it's not his fault, even though it isn't. He didn't know. You couldn't possibly have known."

Her resolute tone has Sam's eyes darting back and forth between her face and his brother's and for a second he thinks Dean may be awake, that she's directing her words purposefully at him.

"We'll stop them." She says, her eyes still on Dean, her hand settling on Sam's calf. And despite himself he feels calmer and so overwhelmingly tired, "Go to sleep, Sam."

"I can take the couch." He offers with a yawn, looking at the pitiful sofa they've fashioned a bed out of for her.

"But I fit on the couch." She counters with a smile, stands and lifts the blanket slightly so he can slither back down the mattress. He lets himself be just a little bit tucked in by her. She brushes the hair out of his eyes as he starts to drift.

He's almost out, but hears her move toward the older man and whisper faintly, "It's not your fault, Dean. None of this is your fault."


	6. Chapter 6

She wakes abruptly from a sound four hour sleep. 7AM. An hour until Kristen arrives. She lies still, turns only her head toward them. Four bare feet sticking out from covers at odd angles. Arms thrown over the sides. Heads buried under pillows. They snore softly and she's loathe to move, to wake the hunters. Dean's blankets have fallen to the floor again. _He's a messy sleeper_, she smiles, _like Issy_.

She turns her head back to the ceiling and connects the water spots. Lets her gaze draw wider and wider circles as she comes fully awake in this motel room hundreds of miles from her family, her bed, her life. She accepts without question in that instant that her life has simply expanded to include them. These boys. Men, she corrects herself. She has to correct herself every time.

She needs a shower. A coffee. Her husband and little girl warm and curled up all together. The last three months of her life back. She settles for a long cat stretch and stealthy quiet trip to the bathroom. She showers and dresses and pads back into the room. The siren call of caffeine has reached her and she barely spares the tiny coffee pot a glance. She won't wake them. She does pass lightly into the space between their beds though. Checking on them, like she does her daughter in the small hours of the morning. Sam's mouth is wide open. There is a slight dappling of blood on the pillow case Dean has discarded with the covers.

She lifts the covers up over him again and his glassy eyes open. Try to focus on her. He's not awake even a little, so she hazards a light touch across his forehead, along the path of the wounds.

"Back to sleep, my sweet" She whispers as his eyes flutter closer to consciousness. "Back to sleep."

He sighs-whimpers in response and she brushes the top of his head to still him. The movement is maternal, automatic to her now, but it isn't lost on her, the fact that this is the closest they've ever been. When his breath levels again she checks her fingertips. No more blood, so she leaves him be and steps away from them. She scribbles a note, slips on her shoes and just closes the motel room door behind her as her phone rings. Kristen will be there in a matter of minutes.

"Meet me across the street from the motel. Rose's Diner." She squints at the sign and hangs up, _coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee_, her only clear thought.

She takes a seat in a booth at the back of the room. Her back to the back, her eyes automatically sweeping across the space, meeting Kristen's gaze as she enters. The tall lanky blonde turns every head in the room as she walks toward the back and the cousins quickly hug hello.

"As much coffee as you have." Kristen answers the waitress. Lilly nods her agreement. Her people are not morning people.

"So." Lilly begins, "Are you ready to meet them?" She's far more nervous than she'd care to admit.

"I'm _dying_ to meet them." Kristen purrs gratefully into her coffee cup. Lilly knows that Kristen, that the other Daughters, have given her her space. Despite Dean and Sam being _the_ hot topic of conversation in recent weeks.

"They're still asleep." She leaks concern, "They're so tired, Kris."

Kristen doesn't answer, just waits Lilly out.

"It's ridiculous," she sputters, "They drop into my life, make a huge mess and I still feel like watching over them." Kristen's Cheshire smile just grows and Lilly continues, "They're grown men for God's sake. They've had whole lives before knowing me, they've had _this _life. They're not children and what's more we really don't know each other from strangers on the street and yet, I'm lying there all night across the room from them and it's all I can do to stop myself tucking them into bed and rocking them to sleep." She waves her hands in exasperation and makes a mewing noise out of her voice, "Kissing their little foreheads goodnight." She sighs, serious again, "Making them safe and take some of this ridiculous burden from them." She growls in frustration, not helped at all by Kristen's laughter. "Oh shut up." Lilly snorts a laugh at her own teenage girl-I-just-want-to-fix-it-and-make-it-better speech.

"Always were an old softie." Kristen snickers, "Don't worry. I won't let it get around."

"Good, because here they come." Lilly tilts her chin toward the window beside them and Kristen turns to watch the two scruffy men cross the parking lot.

"Morning." Sam grumbles and stands in front of Dean who has a pre-coffee incoherence that seems to rival both Kristen and Lilly's.

The older man perks up at the sight of the gorgeous blond and Lilly toys with the thought of letting him make an ass of himself for just a second. "Dean, Sam, this is Kristen Adams, your cousin."

Dean's eyes flicker with realization and the look of appraisal he was sporting disappears with the slight pinking of his cheeks. Kristen stands and in true Kristen style, hugs them both hard and adoringly and makes the kind of fuss beautiful women always get away with no matter how bad a mood anyone might be in. Lilly envies it in her. Whether by design or by accident, Sam sits beside Kristen and Dean beside Lilly.

"So, what's the plan?" Dean is razor serious.

"The plan is we eat breakfast, get a second room and unload our kit." Kristen answers, grabbing a menu.

"And?" Dean tries, unsuccessfully to shoot her an impatient glare.

"And nothing until we find out where they are and how to bring them to us." Kristen answers. "Then we kill them."


	7. Chapter 7

Dean wakes up in a good mood. It had been a nice dream. One of those rare comforting glimpses of his mother that should leave him achy and missing her, but instead just gives him a fleeting moment of peace. He had long ago resigned himself to the fact that peace would only ever come in fleeting moments, so he let's them come. He doesn't deny himself. He keeps it to himself, not wanting to share her with anyone. They are only moments. Rare ones. Not a greedy indulgence. Not really, and can't he just have that small thing?

Soon enough though, the moment passes. His eyes open and focus on the soiled ceiling. He can only be so alert before he's caffeinated, so he half consciously drags himself to the bathroom and steps under punishingly hot water. The feeling returns for a second. Calm, happiness, a sense memory. He can smell it, something wafts over him and he knows better than to grab for it, that it will only disappear like the dream, already long gone, that brought this little reprieve. So he stands perfectly still, holds his breath and realizes an instant too late it was a smell that reminded him. He breathes again, protractedly, through his nose, hoping he hasn't scared the scent and its serenity away, but he knows already it's too late. Oh well. It never occurs to him to wish for longer spells of it.

Sam stands by the table, scratching his ass, reading a piece of paper, yawning like a lion when he gets out of the bathroom. Dean moves without a word of greeting to the small coffee pot thinking that the tiny two cups it will brew are so not enough. Not nearly enough.

"She's at the diner across the street." Sam's voice is tinny in his ears. Distant. His focus entirely on the brown liquid pouring into the decanter as slowly as though it were sentient and torturing him on purpose.

A full beat passes before Dean thinks to ask, "What?"

"Lilly's across the street. She said to go there for breakfast once we're up." Sam repeats.

Lilly. Right. At least there will be more coffee. "Sure." He goes back to his vigil. Sam's already in the shower before he pours the first cup. Doesn't stop to consider how vile it tastes.

_Back to sleep, my sweet. Back to sleep_. The dream comes back to him and he smiles, grateful it isn't all lost. It isn't quite right in his head, looks not quite right, sounds not quite right. He chalks it up to dreams being distorted anyway.

Sam's dressed and they lock up behind them, crossing the parking lot, the street, the diner's parking lot. Dean sees Lilly in the window of the far booth, she's talking animatedly then laughing with a blond woman. A hot blond woman. Maybe this won't suck quite as loud. They make their way in and stand before the Daughters. He's ready to put the moves on, flash his charm smile, work that smooth voice, until he's introduced.

Suddenly he's embarrassed and thrown slightly, and fucking hell, why does Lilly always get the upper hand and goddamn her if he doesn't see the flash of evil grin on her face as Kristen hugs him fiercely, possessively, like she's known him a hundred years or more. And then, for a second it's funny. _OK, you got me_.

Then just as quickly it's not funny. Because he sits next to her and before the smile he's about to concede to her is finished moving across his face, he gets a whiff of her perfume. His body recognizes the sensation of tranquility from the morning and he realizes why the voice in the dream sounded wrong. He doesn't stop to think about why he rejects it, her. He just does. He doesn't want to derive any peace from her. He doesn't ask himself why it's so important he set her apart from them. Make her other. Make her go away. He doesn't stop to consider it's getting harder to either.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam helps to carry the bags into the room adjoining his and Dean's. Lilly is on the phone with Nick discussing the Daevas and Kristen is unpacking their gear. The door between the rooms is open and he rather likes the commotion, the proximity, the life they seem to bring with them. He can see only the movement of the women through the door, walking back and forth, carrying things, arranging things.

Dean is sitting on his bed cleaning weapons, disassembling, oiling, polishing. Mechanical movements, movements he could make blindfolded. Sam knows they soothe Dean. They soothe Sam. Lilly also soothes Sam, _and_ she tilts his world precariously. It's strange and bewildering, the dichotomy Lilly's presence brings with her. Sam supposes, knows, that he cares about her. She's kind, she's caring and open, she's easy to talk to and seems to get him, when he needs to talk, when he needs to be told. But get her near Dean and the air burns with tension and Sam is on edge, nervous, waiting for a big showdown that is always just avoided.

Breakfast, for instance, could have been a disaster. Dean's back was up the second he sat beside her in the booth. If it weren't for Kristen, he would have jumped out of his skin. It's disconcerting to see his big, bulletproof brother so skittish.

"Why did you call her?" He asks. It's been on his mind since Dean opened the door to Lilly last night.

"We needed the help." Dean doesn't look up.

"We didn't know we needed the help until she got here." Sam counters.

Dean doesn't answer, keeps cleaning, arms moving in a well memorized choreography, back straight as a board. No answer is forthcoming, none is expected, he just hopes it's the beginning of a truce between them. And it's just his way of calling his brother on it.

"I don't suppose Dad called." Sam offers.

"I would tell you, Sam."

"Do you think he got the message?" Sam worries. He worries all the time.

"Yeah, he got it." Dean is gruff, matter of fact, but just around the edges is disappointment, Sam can hear it, see it in the microscopic slump of Dean's shoulders.

"How do you know?" He pushes Dean, because Dean needs to vent, needs to let the pressure off, even if it's only peripherally, even if he never actually talks about what he needs to talk about, at least the valve opens a bit and some steam escapes.

"Jesus, Sam." Bingo, Sam thinks. "His voice mail is only so big. If he didn't pick them up eventually I wouldn't be able to even leave a message." It's statements like that that remind Sam never to underestimate his brother, like the rest of the world tends to. Simply leaps of logic that don't occur to anyone, least of all Sam and his supposedly huge brain.

"We're going to need space, lots of it. Privacy. Some place no one will hear." Lilly speaks into her phone as she knocks on the frame of the open doorway between their rooms. "What about a warehouse district?"

Sam motions her in with his hand. She shuts the door behind her as she enters, "Shower and a nap." She covers the receiver with her palm and motions behind her with her head.

"OK." She nods to the phone again, "OK and see if Luna has any space here." She clicks her phone shut and sits at the table.

"Nick thinks he's figured out a way to call them here." She lays her phone on the table and crosses her legs, leans forward. "It's a bit of a leap, but it's worth a try."

She lays out the plan. Satellites, powerful but otherwise subsonic sound waves, a transmitter at their location. Sam cuts off Dean's scoff before the thermometer rises another notch between them, "What if it doesn't work?"

"Then we find your father and wait them out." She says matter-of-factly, "But I don't want it to come to that, given the circumstances."

"The Demon." Dean challenges.

"The Demon."

"What's Luna?" Sam asks.

"The Luna Foundation is a front for the Legacy. A research and funding body on paper. Holds our assets, gives us a legitimate face and let's us scout out potential members in one handy package. It owns lots of property all over the world, we might have a place here we can use."

Sam feels his stomach drop and knows that Dean has sensed the change in him. He's surprised that Lilly seems to have as well. He guesses he's not so subtle, knows he's never been as good as Dean at hiding his feelings. "Does Luna give out scholarships? Prizes?"

"Yes." Her eyes light in understanding. "Did they…" Her question trails and Sam moves to his laptop tapping it with his fingers.

"I got this after freshman year for my academic performance."

"Son of a bitch." She stands, fuming, barely controlling her obvious rage. "That son of a bitch." She paces, "Can I see that?"

"Sure." Sam hands her the computer. She flips it over and asks for a screwdriver. Sam is not altogether comfortable with her taking his little baby apart, but something about her stare doesn't leave room for questions. She has the panels off in no time, components, chips, boards lying side by side, inspecting them one at a time looking around, for what he has no idea. She doesn't seem to find anything and puts the computer back together as quickly as she had taken it apart.

She flips it over and powers it up, and searches several directories with obvious expertise. Grunting obscenities, she doesn't look up from her tapping, "Is there no internet access here?" She looks up angrily brushing her bangs out of her face.

"Uh, no, there's a book store about two blocks away." Sam answers, Dean standing at his side, equally perplexed.

"I need to borrow this." She snaps the computer closed briskly and stands looking at the door Kristen is asleep behind. Blowing her hair out of her face, Sam can practically see gears shifting behind her eyes. "And your car." She looks at Dean shocking them both.

More shocking is that Dean hands over the keys without question or so much as a smart ass warning not to get a scratch on _his girl_.

She leaves them with a warning not to wake Kristen up and then she's gone with a bad-tempered slam of the door.


	9. Chapter 9

It takes her less than 20 minutes to find the program she suspects came with the laptop. They've been monitoring his internet traffic all this time. _Bastard, bastard, bastard, bastard_. The string of profanity that follows seems normal to her now when she thinks of her father. It seems almost ridiculous to her that just a few months ago she'd never have pictured herself thinking about him that way. Her hero. _Yeah bloody right_.

_Goddamit where are you_? Not the first time she's thought that either. She punches another futile text into her phone, perfectly aware her tone is eroding with each one she sends him. Perfectly aware that her father will know something is hugely wrong when he reads it, if he reads it. It infuriates her further that it won't make a lick of difference, he won't answer except with the cryptic messages she gets to let her know he's still alive. No deviation from the life long protocols.

She sits rigid in her overstuffed bookstore café chair. Her limbs are petrified by tension, her chin rests on her fist. The Thinker. She's thinking that at it's at least three years that her father has known for sure. If she were home, she'd hurl her coffee cup at the wall. If she were home she'd pound the ground with her feet, run for a hour, take a chunk out of the heavy bag, anything, anything physical to redirect the aggression. Right now though, she's paralyzed and the pressure is building, nowhere to go. She can't seem to move. The sun is climbing higher in the sky and she knows she'd better get her shit together and get back to the motel soon. There are more important…well…more _immediate_ concerns.

Still though, she closes her eyes a moment and lets the sunlight streaming in from the window warm her face. The rest of her feels hard and cold, wound like a coil. A spring made of strong metal, the kind with so little softness it will jump back violently once it's let go and take someone's fucking eye out. Maybe she should go back. She bets she could get into a good roaring fight with Dean. They've been circling each other like boxers since they day he and Sam showed up in her ER. Just itching for a go. A good knock down drag out. She takes a miserable breath. _It's not his fault_. But as though the universe were trying to test her resolve, a shadow passes in front of her and her face cools. Of course it's him.

"Hate to break up your little cup of tea and meditation, but we have work to do." Dean's voice is impermeably cold. _Oh yeah. Here we go_, _fuck compassion and fuck who's ever fault this really is._

She looks up at him, places her arms on the arms of the chair gracefully and sits, if it's at all possible, straighter, a queen holding court, passing judgment on her subject. It will make him nervous, she knows it will. And it does, she sees it pass over his eyes, but damn this kid is good at hiding it. She admires him grudgingly.

"My father is out there, maybe getting his heart torn out," He hisses quietly, marshalling his own anger, sarcasm, "or worse. So while I hate to interrupt your little…whatever this is, I'd really like some help keeping my family from getting killed."

She stares at him. Cruelty, like puss, bubbling at the surface, the result of three months walking around with this open wound in her heart. Infected. She thinks of the most horrible things to say to him, things she is sure she can bring him to tears with, she tastes them in her mouth. And then she is ashamed. She blanches at her own thoughts and just looks at him.

"Hello?" He demands.

"There's a program on Sam's computer that connects him to the Legacy server every time he's online." She says with a low voice, bringing Dean down in the chair across from her.

He's speechless, processing, she helps him out, "They've been watching him since the end of his first year at Stanford."

"What the hell?" Dean's voice is dangerous, afraid, on alert, like the rest of him, then he falters, "Why? Why would they do that?"

"I don't know." Something on his face, just…something. "Dean? What haven't you told me?"


	10. Chapter 10

He stares at her from across the small space between chairs. She is formidable in ways that remind him of John: no bullshit; unquestioned authority; quick mind. And she is formidable in ways he struggles to understand, control, repel. That she makes him nervous is something he only admits to himself after a shot or six, having left Sam in a motel, talking to her happily after a hunt or after nothing in particular. It's the 'nothing in particular chats' that send him to the bar the most often.

She makes him nervous. Part of it is the fear of…Dean never finishes the thought. Part of it is also that she is strong, so much stronger than he is and he is no wuss. She sees things he thinks he hides well, she understand things he thinks no one else does. She reads him and Sam as though they were children's books, big print, bright pictures, no subtext.

_Subtext_, he thinks Sam might be impressed, more shocked really, to know Dean thinks in those terms. The air when Lilly is present, in person or on the phone, is _rife with subtext_. Another two dollar phrase that would raise geek boy's eyebrows. In the hour and a half that she's been gone, Dean's been doing nothing but thinking about their _subtext_, without finishing the thought he never finishes. It took a full five minutes of Sam staring open mouthed at Dean for just handing over the keys before he'd stormed off in search of her.

He found her in another ten, but stood back and watched her rather than confront her. He watched her tap at the keys furiously; he knew the second she'd figured out whatever she'd figured out; he watched her body grow rigid in anger slowly as she stared into space, done with the computer. He watched her not throw her phone across the room after typing in a text. The not throwing the phone is what finally moved him to approach her. His chance to catch her off guard, his chance to blow through her calm and maybe gain the upper hand back. Christ, he'd settle for even footing.

No chance of that.

_What haven't you told me?_

_Uh…geek boy's got the shining._

"How do you know it's _them_?" Dean asks, instead of answering the question.

"What do you mean?" She's frustrated, he enjoys it for a second.

"They way you stormed out looked to me like you thought your father set it up." Dean scores again. He feels his heart rate climb, just a little. "What makes you think it wasn't just him?"

"Nothing, actually." She admits, "Good point. But right now I'm a bit more interested in why you're avoiding the question."

"According to Sam, that's what I do best." Smug.

"Sam's often right. So out with it."

"There's nothing to tell you don't already know." He almost never out right lies unless he's scamming for information. And that he doesn't consider lying, it's work. This though, this feels like lying.

"Bollocks. There's something going on and I think I need to know what it is." She pushes and he decides it's about time to push back.

"Need to know? You don't get to just waltz into our life and expect to be part of it. Sam and dad and I have been on our own all this time, we do fine, we don't need your help." It suddenly feels less like pushing back and more like he's a pouty child with no control over his mouth.

Her face softens after a moment of silence, and she sits back, "Then why did you call me, Dean? If you don't want my help, if you don't want us to know each other, if you don't want to find out what happened to our mother, why John and Derek kept this from us, why?"

"I don't know." It slips out before he can get a hold of himself, he's surprised to find it's less embarrassing than he thought. "For Sam, I guess."

She smiles. She actually smiles, which wasn't what he was expecting, "That's generous of you." He wants to jump at her, but there is no sarcasm in her tone.

"No, it's not. His brooding keeps me up at night." He tries to keep his face flat, but she laughs again.

"He broods when he doesn't see me?"

"He broods when his favourite shirt is dirty." Dean snaps back. "Don't flatter yourself. He's a brooder. It distracts him and he needs to be sharp." The edge is back in his tone.

"Dean, I know you and I aren't exactly….haven't exactly…we don't seem to be able to..." He snorts a little laugh at her frustration, he can't help it, he gets it and it bolsters him.

She sighs in exasperation, "I don't want to be like this with you all the time. I get it, Dean. I'm not all that fond of change either, but here we are. There's no undoing it, there's no unknowing it. There's no getting on about our business as though nothing is different."

"That doesn't mean I need a BFF." He takes his car keys and the laptop from in front of her and gets up to walk out of the café, stopping only at the door to make a show of waiting for her impatiently.


	11. Chapter 11

"They'll be fine, Sam." Kristen emerges through the door joining the motel rooms. She straightens her hair absently and makes herself comfortable on Dean's bed.

This is his cousin. He has a cousin. He finds it overwhelming that suddenly he has a family larger than can fit in the Impala, but he keeps letting himself be swept along by the tide after tide of new information.

She yawns and stretches. It looks to Sam as though she might doze off and he marvels at her being so serene. "They won't kill each other, despite what it looks like."

Sam laughs. "I'm not so sure. I've never seen two people butt heads like this before." Sam shakes his head and sits on the other bed across from Kristen. "And you should have seen me and my dad."

"Ah fathers…Just wait until Derek reappears. You'll see some serious head butting." Kristen snickers knowingly, closes her eyes and shakes her head. "That'll be a Dutch fight."

"A what?"

"Dutch fight. You can always tell how bad Lilly and Derek's fights are by the language they fight in. English is an average argument. They switch to French when they're totally pissed and don't want anyone else to know. Dutch is ballistic." Kristen yawns.

Sam thinks back to the dozens of Dutch fights he'd had with John the last year they lived under the same roof. He wonders what 'language' their next meeting will be in. "How was your nap?" He asks.

"It wasn't." Kristen rolls to her side and just looks at him, "Between the door slamming and the planning and the…well…all this." He tries not to squirm under the appraisal, but her face turns kind and thoughtful, "This is pretty strange, huh?"

"Yeah." Not his most intelligent response, but it covers it. "I mean, it's kind of nice. We've been on our own for so long, I like it. But Dean's not…_coping_ with it. He doesn't cope with change all that well."

"Yeah, I sensed that." Kristen lies on her back again. "Don't worry. She'll wear him down."

"I'm more worried she'll knock him down." Sam shakes his head, "He can't seem to help being a total ass around her."

"I noticed that too." Kristen smiles and turns her head toward him, "Don't worry about her and Dean. It may take a while, but they'll sort themselves out. She's really pretty much the best kind of person to the people she loves. Once she's made up her mind about you, there's nothing she won't do for you. And she's totally crazy about you two."

Sam actually feels himself blush. "Really? Despite Dean?" He tries to joke it off.

"Not despite. You're brother's a good man, that's obvious to anyone. She can see around the edges, no matter how rough they seem."

"She said he reminds her of Nick."

"Then they'll definitely be fine." Kristen laughs. "Where did she go anyway?"

"Down the street, needed an internet connection." Sam explains the Luna connection to her.

"Derek's probably been monitoring you." Kristen shakes her head in annoyance, "Seriously Dutch fight." She mumbles to herself.

Sam watches her for a moment, "Shouldn't we be doing something to get ready?"

"We are. We're resting." Kristen says, "She told you Nick's plan?"

"Yes."

"We need the transmitter and we need the right frequencies to broadcast the _demonic dog whistle_," Kristen laughs at Sam's words, "I like that by the way. Anyway, Nick is working on it. We'll need to move as soon as we hear from him and it'll be a while before we slow down after that. There's no sense wasting energy until then."

"What about weapons, gear? What do we need?"

"It's covered. Everything's ready to go." Kristen says. "Seriously, Sam. Sit. Watch television. This isn't our first time, we know what we're doing. Trust me."

And he does. It goes against everything Dean or John has ever taught him, but he does. So he sits on his own bed and flips on the TV and plays it low enough that Kristen can get back to sleep. They settle into a companionable silence for a little while before a storm comes through the door in the form of Dean followed by Lilly.

"What are you? Fourteen years old? Do you think you spouting an endless stream of nasty and annoying bullshit will distract me from the fact that you haven't answered the question." She yells following Dean into the motel room.

"What are you?" Dean counters, "Not old enough to take a hint?"

Sam looks to Kristen, who hasn't so much as flinched at the slamming doors and yelling. He swears he has no idea how she is so calm all the time. She must be able to feel his eyes on her though, because she opens her eyes and turns to him.

"I said it would take a while." Kristen closes her eyes again and simply crosses her arms behind her head in response to Dean's glaring at her on his bed.

"OK, something is going on and one of you had better tell me what." Lilly looks straight to Sam and he feels stared down.

"Or else what?" He hears Dean's defensiveness turn offensive and looks at his brother's stony face. Sam knows Dean will be pissed, knows Dean is just looking out for him, protecting him, but the floundering over the past few months is too much for him. Sam interrupts and tells them about the visions, about dreaming Jessica's death, about Max.

"Bloody bloody hell." She huffs and sits beside Kristen on the bed.

"Yeah. Look, we probably should have told you sooner." Sam puts his arms across Dean's chest when he sees his older brother ready to jump to his defense.

"I wish you had." She sighs.

"We don't owe you any explanations." Dean growls at her, straining under Sam's arm.

"Oh shut up." She snaps and gets to her feet. Sam, now ready to jump to Dean's defense, lowers his arm and let's Dean stand in her face, but she shoves him back a step. "Honest to bloody god, enough."

Kristen rolls lazily off the bed and stands next to Sam, a gentle hand on his arm holding him back.

"I get it." Lilly says through gritted teeth, "I'm not in the club." She looks just a bit defeated to Sam, but she stands her ground with his brother, "No admittance to the tree house. You've made it perfectly clear. So would you just shut the fuck up and let me finish?"

"Fine." Dean shocks Sam with the simple statement. Lilly's next statement shocks him more.


	12. Chapter 12

Lilly ignores for the moment how much the rejection stings. How much it actually hurts. The surprise that comes with it. But she's at least as good as Dean is at going toe to toe and _throwing it right-back-atcha_. So, she takes a deep breath and files it aside for the time being, though she acknowledges the look in Kristen's eye with a split second glance. _Take a breath, keep going, we'll talk about it later_ all conveyed in a short hand developed over years.

"I wish you had told me when I saw you last because I would have taken you to the Legacy house to see Alex Moreau." She artfully avoids Dean's gaze and concentrates on Sam, "She's also a psychic. She may have been able to help you with the headaches. Maybe controlling the visions."

Sam takes it in. She can't quite read everything crossing his face but she guesses somewhere, hopes that somewhere, he's relieved to know he's not the only one. "There are others, too. My father and Kat also have visions. They don't seem to be as specific as yours, but at least you could talk to someone."

She takes a breath and steps back, "Alex disappeared about a week after you left San Francisco. I think she's with my father, though no one knows for sure where either of them is."

"What about Kat?" Sam asks.

"She's not generally anxious to talk about it." Lilly says softly, "She's had a difficult time with it, and Rachel isn't keen to push her."

They all stand quietly, take it in. Lilly ignores Dean's gaze as long as she can.

"I'm sorry, Sam." She offers finally and walks through the door to her room, closing it behind her.

She putters, folding and refolding her clothes in the best imitation of an OCD patient she doesn't realize she's doing. She's in the bathroom, sorting lipstick when she hears Kristen come back through the door.

"Nick's trying to reach you." Kristen stands in the doorway and waves her phone at Lilly. Lilly steels her voice and realizes she's left her phone in Dean's car. _Great_. She talks to Nick, gets the details of their next steps, careful the whole time to keep the bruise from her voice, though she knows he'll know there's something wrong. He always knows, and thank god for that.

"I love you too sweetheart, kiss Issy." She smiles into the phone and hangs up, hands it back to Kristen.

"Well this day just keeps getting better." She gruffs at her cousin and fills her in on the details.

"Fantastic." Kristen answers, sarcasm dripping. "Well, let's get this show on the road." She calls Sam and Dean into their room and speaks for Lilly.

"There's a warehouse on the outskirts of town by the docks. We'll set up there tonight. Lilly and I will go check the place out now," Kristen turns an unforgiving, unyielding, _don't-even-think-about-challenging-me-if-you-want-to-walk-out-without-a-limp_ glare on Dean, who has the decency to flinch, "You two stay here. We have a meeting tonight with a contact named Eddie. And by contact I mean low life scum bag who is only alive because he's useful. He'll have the transmitter and the frequencies. WE will do all the talking. Are we clear?" Again, aiming her glare at Dean, Kristen waits for an answer.

This time it's Sam who looks like he bristling under the orders and Lilly answers the discontent in his face without room for argument. "Let's get this straight now. Kris and I know you are capable, we know you're good at your job, but you are not good enough for this."

The protest on Sam's lips isn't given a chance to form, "You got out, barely, the last time. We've actually hunted Daevas before. We have killed them before. They are stronger than anything you've ever fought before. You will not fight them."

"Then why the hell are we even here?" Dean snipes.

"Really, you should learn to let me finish." Not a drop of warmth in her voice now, "We need your help, but you won't fight them. Sam you'll be with Kristen, Dean with me. Daevas are easily distracted, especially when they're angry, which they will be. You two will do the distracting. You'll make a lot of noise, you'll fire weapons at them, you'll keep them from getting a lock on where Kristen and I are. You'll buy us time and cover so that Kristen and I can get close enough to kill them."

"How?" Sam asks.

Kristen reaches under the bed and pulls out a case that she drops heavily on the mattress. She flips it open revealing two polished iron broadswords. "Decapitation."

"These are pure iron." Lilly fills them in, "It's the only thing that works on them."

Kristen pulls a bag out now, pulls a smaller box out from it along with four pairs of goggles tossing a pair each to Sam and Dean. "They'll be visible on the infrared setting. These," She picks up the box and tosses onto the bed at Dean's knees, "are iron rounds. It won't kill them, but they'll seriously bleed."

Dean flips open the box and examines the polished ammunition.

"Once we've met with Eddie," Lilly puts her hand up to silence Sam, "yes you can come, you just let us do the talking. Once we're done with him, we'll go back to the warehouse, set up the transmitter, ready the weapons, then summon the Daevas. And kill them."

"Just like that?" Dean snarks.

"I doubt it." Kristen snarks right back, lines drawn in the tacky motel carpeting, Kristen standing by her side, the boys standing together. Kristen's shoulder brushes hers and Lilly appreciates the solidarity. She does, but it occurs to her she'd rather have the brother than the standoff.

Ten minutes later Kristen and Lilly are in the car on the way to the warehouse.

"He'll come around, Lil" Kristen ventures.

"Don't." Lilly isn't ready to care and share right this second. She can't afford the melancholy this close to the fight.

Kristen changes gears, "I brought the gloves." She mentions playfully.

"I think we've probably got better things to do than spar right now." Lilly half heartedly chastises her.

"I think you'd better get the mad/sad/moody pants out of your system before we see Eddie. He'll pick up on it." Kristen says seriously. "And what better way than a couple of rounds with Dean's face on my body?"

Lilly nods. She's right. Time to focus, to use her skills, her anger, her seemingly never ending three month hurt to her advantage. If there's one thing Lilly's good at it's sublimating her emotions into her fists. "Are they following us?"

Kristen doesn't even bother lifting her eyes to the rearview, she spotted them three blocks ago. "They should really think about driving something more subtle." Kristen laughs. "Want me to lose them?"

"No," Lilly says, "They should find out now instead of later that they're playing with the grown ups." The edge in her voice signals the end of the pity party and the beginning of the anger, the upper hand.


	13. Chapter 13

They climb in through the nearly ceiling high window of the abandoned warehouse from the roof of the adjoining building. There is a maze of scaffolds and catwalks that they silently traverse, trying to get the best view of the floor below. They find a spot in the rafters when Lilly and Kristen look like they've finished getting familiar with the space. It's a single giant room with no places to hide but around the beams supporting the roof.

"Not much cover for us." Sam whispers.

"Not much for the Daevas either." He answers.

They watch in rapt fascination as the women warm up. They followed them when they saw the case containing the broadswords packed into Kristen's rental car. Lilly sets the case on the floor and pulls the swords out and the women start some elaborate, choreographed sequence of moves that stretches their bodies through various fighting positions, like a violent tai chi.

"Dean, those things must weigh fifty pounds each." Sam's voice may be quiet, but Dean doesn't miss the awe and amazement in it.

"At least." He answers.

"They're waving them around like they're as light as cheerleading batons." Sam whispers urgently.

"Shh." Dean whispers. He wants to see this. Wants to see what they're made of. He's putting his father's life in her hands and that's something he doesn't entirely trust to anyone that isn't him.

He's been pretty much silent since his standoff with Lilly. Sam has been glaring at him intermittently, and he is just so not in the mood. He doesn't feel good about what happened, there's no denying it. The last thing he expected was for Lilly to call him on his behaviour, though he has no idea why he wouldn't have expected it. It's not like she'd let anything pass by unchallenged so far. But still, he'd gotten used to the back and forth arguing and her words sounded like the end of the fight. He's not sure who won.

He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care. He never wanted her around in the first place, would like nothing more for her to just disappear. But it's not sitting well and he can't bring himself to think about why. _Avoid, ignore, evade_, the Winchester motto for emotional scenes and self analysis. Except for Sam, of course, then it's _analyze, pick apart, beat it to death with a feelings stick_.

Lilly and Kristen finally set the swords down and Dean is ready to follow them back out of the building, when he sees them strap on gloves instead. _They're going to spar? Are they serious? His dad is running for his life and they're going to do a little bit of light aerobics?_ Anger wells up in him instantly. He's ready to jump from the ceiling and go at them. _Who the hell do they think they are? Issuing orders, taking command, running this like it's some sort of training exercise? _ He conveniently ignores the fact that he'd fallen into step with their orders and commands without issue up to now. _Once a good little soldier, always a good little soldier,_ he can practically hear Sam's voice in his head, which only serves to irritate him more.

It's the viciousness of the fighting that stops him. If this is sparring, his Dad seriously underprepared him and Sam. Lilly and Kristen attack each other like the fight is for real. Neither really lands a blow, since both are so clearly expertly trained, but the odd one or two that get through find their mark with bone cracking brutality. A shot to Lilly's face lands squarely and snaps her head back. A round house kick sends Kristen flying back a foot onto her ass. Another from Kristen is just barely caught in time and Lilly twists her cousin's foot with enough force to send the blonde twirling into the air.

"Jesus." The word escapes Dean's lips in a disbelieving his.

"This is like a movie." Sam's awestruck comment covers Dean's thoughts.

"Maybe we should bring a soundtrack for later." Dean tries to joke, but he still can't tear his eyes away from the fight or his guilt away from his throat.

"You seriously pissed her off, dude." Sam's eyes don't leave the scene below either. That's not entirely true, Dean thinks. He saw it in Lilly's eyes as she let him have it. He'd hurt her. And it bothers him. And his anger evaporates just like that, leaving a guilty discomfort in its place. That's what this fight is about, he realizes in an uncharacteristically analytical moment. She's hurt and she has to purge it. Fucking some random leggy redhead is more Dean's style, but he recognizes this for what it is just the same.

He watches more closely now, sees it: for all her obvious training, all her ferocious skill, Lilly spends the first few moments evading Kristen. She's finding her feet. And as it goes on, he can tell when she's hit her stride, found her balance and he sees the tide turn and it's Kristen turn to evade blow after aggressive blow.

"Let's get out of here while they're still distracted." Sam suggests eventually. Dean sees a mix of shellshock and wonder on Sam's face.

They're still dumbstruck half an hour later when they hear Kristen's car pull up near the motel room window. Hear the women let themselves into the motel. Dean barely catches a glimpse of Lilly as she shuts the door joining their rooms. A shiner glows, if one could use that word for something so dark-black-purple, around her left eye. Kristen walks past as the door closes, wiping the dried blood from beneath her nose.

Dean knows that John's life is in good hands, that he and Sam couldn't have better help. The dread he feels is entirely unrelated to the fight ahead, but it's imposing and he won't be able to keep shoving it away for long.


	14. Chapter 14

They wander across the street to the diner when Kristen kicks them out of their room so she can take a bath. Sam wouldn't go barefoot in that bathroom let alone lie around naked, but after what he's just seen, he doesn't think there's a delicate bone in either his sister's or cousin's body. Dean is of course silent and evasive and for the time being that is fine with Sam.

"Hey, I forgot my phone." He lies, "I'll meet you there.'

Dean only grunts in response and keeps walking, grateful, Sam is sure, to be left alone for a little while. He knocks gently on the motel room door and when Kristen doesn't answer he lets himself in and quietly walks through the door to Lilly's room.

"Lilly?" he ventures. He hears the splash of water in the bathroom and stands near the closed door, "Lilly?" A bit louder. Still no answer, "Lil? Are you alright?"

"Please don't ever call me Lil." The dry English accent makes him smile.

"Can I talk to you?" He asks. "I just want to know if you're OK."

"I'm fine, Sam."

"Can I come in?" He hears the water slosh and a shower curtain being pulled.

"It can't possibly have escaped your notice that I'm taking a bath." Dean may remind her of Nick, but more and more Lilly reminds Sam of Dean.

"Sorry." He crouches down by the bathroom door instead. "What happened?" He prods.

"You're not going away are you?"

"No."

"Christ." He hears her mutter. A moment later she joins him, looking surprisingly small wrapped in a robe, her hair swirled up in a towel turban, her black eye making his face ache.

"Jesus, Lilly, does it hurt?" He feels like an ass.

"It'll be fine. It'll be gone by tomorrow." Sam looks up at her, eyebrows knit, "We heal quickly, remember?"

He hadn't seen the shiner, just the redness and slight swelling on Kristen's face when she burst into their room and annexed their bathtub. "What happened?" He reaches to touch her face, but she moves away too quickly.

"Well, I think I must have dropped my shoulder and tipped Kristen off before I swung, and she clocked me while my side was exposed, but I'm not sure," She tightens the robe around her and sits across from him, "You had a better view, what did it look like to you?"

"You knew we were there?"

She just lifts her bruised eyebrow and flinches from the pain.

"Right. Sorry. We were just…" He hopes the sheepish look on his face is enough of an explanation.

"Don't worry about it. We'd have done the same." She adjusts the towel on her head. "We, I, just needed to…re-focus."

He doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't know what to do about what's happening between her and Dean. He just knows he has to make his own way with her, and so he doesn't try to speak for his brother. "I don't mind you being in the treehouse." He offers.

"Thank you." She says after a minute. "I don't want to impose myself on him, on either of you. I know I will never have with either of you what you have with each other. It's fine." She stops, "No, it's not, it's infuriating, but it is what it is and it can't be undone." It seems to Sam that she's talking herself down rather than really speaking what she believes. "I just want to know you."

"Me too." Sam assures her.

"But Dean doesn't." She looks a bit sad and it's more disconcerting to Sam than he expects, seeing her this way. "Dean wants me to have never existed."

"I don't know what to tell you. I don't know why this is so hard for him." Sam says, and it's the truth, "For a guy whose family is the only thing he's ever had, it makes no sense that more family is such a…I don't know." Sam shakes his head.

"Threat. I'm a threat." She finishes his thought.

"How? One we barely even know you. And two, you've been nothing but, well, nice, isn't the word," they both laugh, "but I know you care about us."

"It's her. My existence messes with his image of her." Sam looks up into her eyes, "It's different for you and me, Sam. We didn't know her. He remembers. He's avenging her, his safe, young life. The before time, you know? Neither of us has a before time. My being alive means she was someone besides his blonde haired, soft voiced, cookie baking mother. She was a woman who was hiding something, who left behind another life and another family. She wasn't an innocent."

"And that fucks with everything." Sam finishes. Really, finally getting it. The thoughts and implications come at him at light speed. "Wow." Sam gets up, paces, scrubs at his face, winces when he touches his wounds. "Wow." Again, not so intelligent, but it gets the point across. All their lives they thought they were fighting something that ripped away their innocence, but what if they hadn't had any, ever? What if they were destined to this life all along? What if there was no perfect life his Dad and Dean always clung to? And what about Dad? What did Dad think of her after he'd found out, why did he keep fighting?

"Dad." Sam mutters to himself, "Do you think she was running from the Demon all along?" He asks her.

"I don't know."

"So there was no way to avoid what happened to us?" Sam is bewildered, blindsided. _Jess, I'm so sorry, Jess_. "We weren't just in the wrong place? The unlucky ones? We were never going to be normal?"

"No one courts this life, Sam. It courts us."


	15. Chapter 15

Lilly and Kristen have cleaned up and sit in the diner dressed to kill, literally. It took enough foundation to build a house on to cover the injuries they'd inflicted on each other, but to all on the outside, they look normal, if not a little slutty. She pretends the silence isn't awkward, she pretends that looking at Dean is casual. She pretends she isn't insanely grateful for Kristen's leg pressed against hers as they sit in the booth and eat. They spend the two hours until they meet with Eddie planning how they will handle the Daevas.

Dean tries his father over and over again, gets nothing. His body is still, his face is placid, professional, but she knows inside he is humming. She knows the feeling, the coiling of the spring, the building pressure, the roughening water inside, the special kind of tightness that comes when there is more at stake than the safety of strangers.

Her instinct is to be soothing, to say something to kind. She sort of hates it, prefers being a just cold, mean, talented killer when she's hunting. She has always had to compartmentalize her life from her _life. _It's not a hard trick, but it just seems to take so much more conscious effort than it used to since she had Issabelle, ever since she fell in love with Nick. She does it by dipping into the ferocity of her loyalty, of her love, distilling it until it is just plain ferociousness. She does it now by telling herself things like killing the threat to his father will soothe Dean more than any words would, especially any from her.

They go through the plan once more before the time finally comes and they drive to a club in a seedy-cum-fashionable area of the city. She and Kristen are made up to bypass any bouncer: a slick veneer plastered over a base that seems less classy; tight clothes over tight bodies; hard makeup over accommodating looking eyes. The boys trail behind like bodyguards. They split up instantly, case the club and meet up on the top floor by the bar. A wall of a man stands at a nondescript doorway. She and Kristen look at him as though he were dirty laundry. Not so much distasteful as a chore.

"Who the hell are you?" He stands in their way.

"We're here for Eddie." She simply lifts her sleeve, shows him the mark of the Order, the mark congenitally branded on all of the Daughters' arms, and he steps aside, more jumpy than cool. "Third door on the left." He recovers, voice low and threatening again.

The four file in to the hall, one by one, military straight. The noises coming from the doors to either side sound lascivious, pornographic, illegal, but she doesn't spare them a millisecond. She stops just before the third door and looks at her brothers, "Remember what we told you?" She looks Dean in the eye, challenges him. He simply nods. All business. She feels in step with him for a change and nods back. She looks quickly to Sam, who is nervous, but whose jaw is set, ready. Kristen's eye is on the door and Lilly doesn't bother to worry she's on the same page with Kris.

They don't bother to knock.

The room is poorly lit in a way that is probably meant to look like ambiance. If sleaze could be considered atmospheric. There is a bed directly ahead of them, crumpled, slept in, satin sheeted. Red satin, of course. Between them and the bed, a small sofa sits against the wall, a coffee table she simply assumes is sticky, sits in front of the sofa and two deep red velvet chairs across from the sofa. Eddie sits in the chair closest the bed and smiles, lizardly.

"Ladies, always a pleasure." Even his voice slithers, she thinks.

Kristen pulls an envelope out of her pocket and throws it on to the coffee table.

"What? No foreplay? You two really should learn to relax." Eddie smiles, "Have a seat."

"Give us what we came for." Lilly states flatly.

"You make everything sound so dirty." Eddie flashes a smile revealing a mouth full of gold teeth. Lilly can swear a disgusted shudder has passes through each of them.

"The transmitter and the frequencies, Eddie."

Eddie stands and walks up to Lilly, "What kind of host am I? Can I offer you ladies a drink? Your friends maybe?" He runs a hand along Lilly's arm as he runs his eyes over Sam and Dean.

"What have we said about you touching me?" She asks as she takes his hand and twists it and twists it and twists him to the ground until Eddie is on his knees whimpering in front of her. "I would like the transmitter, I would like the frequencies and I would like to them now."

She lets go of his hand and Eddie falls backwards. He scrambles to his feet and rubs his wrist. His composure is gone as is his slickness and smarm. He goes to the bed and pulls a wrinkled paper bag out from under it, walks back warily and hands it to Kristen who takes it only between the tips of her fingers. She opens it gingerly and looks inside.

She pulls out a slip of paper and hands it to Lilly who would give pretty much anything for a pair of tweezers right this second. She unfolds it and feels the cold pulse through her veins. She knew this was too easy.

"Eddie, if you're going to make up sub sonic frequencies, they should be _in_ the subsonic range." She turns the printed side of the page toward Eddie and his eyes widen in shock.

Lilly steps back toward her brothers and flashes Kristen a look, passes a world of information to her in a glance. "I can't imagine the conditions under which you'd want Nick to find out you tried to screw us." She stands in front of her cousin, provides her as much cover as she can. They hadn't expected this, hadn't discussed it and Lilly can only pray Dean and Sam stay still. "I can't imagine the conditions under which you'd want us to ruin your slimy but so far reliable reputation." She turns back around to face Eddie, face the thing occupying Eddy. "I can't imagine _Eddie _would want any of those things."

The demon's eyes flash black and it sends Lilly flying through the air, crashing against the wall behind Dean and Sam.


	16. Chapter 16

Lilly flies over his head, crunches against the wall and falls to the ground on all fours. He doesn't stop to see her shake her head and get to her feet, he's already moving to help Kristin subdue the demon, knowing Sam will go for his sister. Dean gets the bad guy, Sam gets the people, just like always.

Kristen has the demon pinned to the ground and is trying to pry it's mouth open. "Hold his head." She doesn't spare him a glance, just focuses on wrenching Eddie's jaw.

Dean obliges and sees Lilly shake off Sam's attempts to check her out. She's fine, and angry and pulling something out of her pocket.

"Tear up some sheets, we're going to tie him down." She tells Sam. His brother snaps to and heads for the bed. Lilly drops to her knees beside Dean.

"Syringe." Lilly tells Kristen. "Dean, grab his arm."

He does as he's told and watches Lilly unroll a small leather case along the ground and pull out a hypodermic and inspects the liquid in the syringe. Holy water, Dean realizes. Lilly administers the injection. The demon's convulsions are instant, violent and the thrashing sends Kristen off Eddie's chest onto the ground, Dean only narrowly avoids its fist flying into his face.

But as quickly as it starts the demon curls up fetally and moans painfully. Lilly and Kristen stand and yank Eddie's body toward the coffee table, prostrating it, and tie its arms and legs o each other underneath the surface of the table, making movement painful, if at all possible.

"What the hell was that?" Dean speaks.

"Holy water." Kristen smiles, "Gotta love the stuff."

"I meant what the hell was that?" Dean points at Eddie's lewdly displayed figure.

"Demon." Kristen responds with a look that says _are you new?_

"I. Know. What the hell?" He's exasperated, annoyed by being caught off guard.

"The demon that laid the trap in Chicago clearly doesn't want us to help your father." Lilly wipes a dribble of blood from her mouth then cradles her left arm and gingerly rolls her shoulder. She looks at Kristen, "Always my left side. Seriously."

"Hello? What's going on here?" Their casualness only fuels Dean's frustration.

"Dean. This is good news." Sam's voice is calm and infuriatingly reasonable, "Dad's alive."

"How do you know?" Dean feels like the only one in the room about to lose his mind, which does not help him calm down even a little.

"It's trying to keep us from getting to the Daevas. It wouldn't bother if they'd already done their job." Lilly replies patiently and relief sweeps through him when he takes it in.

"OK." He catches his breath and looks at Eddie. "Now what?"

"Now we wait for it to come to and we find out what we can." Lilly replies and almost sits down on the couch before she catches herself. "Ugh." She makes a face at the questionable furnishings.

"You're telling me," Sam laughs awkwardly splaying his to show them, palms out, "I touched the sheets."

The demon's head begins to shake slowly back and forth and Lilly steps over to the coffee table and slaps it soundly across the face. "Wake up."

"Wake. Up." She doesn't bother slapping and simply squirts it with more holy water from the plastic bottle. A shot of steam rises from its skin and it bares Eddie's teeth when it realizes it is restrained.

"Who sent you? What do you want?" Dean

It turns Eddie's head away from Dean and spits at Kristen, which earns it another hissing splash across its face. "Don't be rude." Lilly goads it.

"Why are you here?" Lilly demands. When it doesn't answer, she waggles the newly refilled syringe in its face. "What we'd really like," He's never heard Lilly's voice like this, she sounds almost cruel. The depth of the change in her is frightening. There is a solidness to her, something that tells him she is immovable, impenetrable, like a rock, a monolith, like it would take a bomb to crack her open. She brings her face level with its black liquidy eyes, "is to do this the hard way."

It responds by laughing.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" Dean demands. He and Lilly stand together, practically straddling the demon and he can feel the fear spread through him. Lilly jabs the needle into the same injection site and they wait out another fit of writhing and seizing. As it calms again, the demon turns its head and stares at Sam like he's a pastry or a shiny jewel, practically watering at the mouth.

"Making sure nothing gets in the way." It laughs again, and Dean tries to smack the arrogant smirk off its face.

"In the way of what?" Dean growls through gritted teeth and smacks it again for good measure.

It only smiles at Sam.

"Who sent you?" Kristine demands.

It continues to stare openly at his little brother, "You know."

"The Demon." Sam stares, terrified into Dean's eyes and all Dean can do is not change his expression, not concede his fear.

"Where are the Daevas?" Lilly demands.

"With your daddy. Playing with your daddy." The demon responds in a psychotic singsongy voice.

"Where's John Winchester?" Lilly snaps the demon's face away from Sam, forcing it to look at her. It's face is chiseled into a shit eating grin and she squeezes its jaw harder, letting Kristen pour more holy water into its mouth.

It spits and stutters and laughs again, "Nowhere for much longer." Dean stands ready to beat the truth out it, but Lilly stops him.

"Don't bother. It's just trying to keep us busy. Buy the Deavas some time. We need to finish what we started." She stares hard into his eyes, willing down his anxiety, demanding his agreement. "Now."

"OK." He stands back next to Sam. "OK. What do we do?"

Kristen and Lilly motion him and Sam out of the way and stand over the demon. "You asked for it." Kristen mocks.

They begin murmuring in a language Dean doesn't understand, not Latin, not any exorcism rite he's ever heard of, but the effect is the same. The demon's face changes from smug to terrified and its writhing becomes worse than what the holy water had produced. They chant louder and louder and Eddy's head whips back and forth. It begs for its life, it begs them to stop, it swears it will tell them everything and Dean is torn between enjoying its pain and stopping the ritual to get answers.

He holds Sam back from stepping in, interrogating it because he knows. He knows demons lie and whether or not it has the answers about what's happening to Sam they'll never be able to trust a thing it says. It will gain them nothing but lost sleep and a dead father. And he stops Sam because he trusts Lilly, trusts the cold hard pitiless demon baiting side of her, to do what is necessary to save his father. Every ounce of strength in his body, every wish he's ever made, ever drop of energy he's ever expended has been in service of keeping his family together and the fear of Sam's freaky powers and what they could mean aside, the immediate threat is to John. Save Dad. _Lilly will help us save Dad_ is all he can think of, so he holds Sam back.


	17. Chapter 17

Sam sits in the car beside Dean and it's everything he can do to keep from shaking. The way Eddie, demon Eddie, kept looking at him, kept addressing him, he can't make it stop replaying it in his head. Can't make his skin stop crawling, or his heart stop pounding. He wanted to stop the exorcism. The demon knew something and now it's killing him that they lost the chance to figure out what.

"How did you know?" Sam asks. It happened so quickly. One second Lilly was reading a sheet of paper, the next second she was flying through the air and a stream of holy water was spouting from Kristen's hand in to demon Eddie's face.

"He touched her." Kristen answers flatly from the back seat. "Last time he touched her she broke three of his fingers. The real Eddie isn't that brave. Or stupid."

Dean chuckles beside Sam and even the sight of the first smile on Dean's face in days isn't enough to loosen the constriction around Sam's chest. He stares straight ahead and tries to concentrate. Tries to stop the questions stampeding in circles in his head.

"Sammy, stop thinking so loud." Dean shoots him a glance, coddling, snarky, pleading and gentle all at once. All at once big brotherly.

"How do we know it won't just call every Daeva in the world?" Sam tries to get his head in the game. He can see it on Dean's face, on Lilly's, on Kristen's. They've boxed up what happened in the back room of the club already.

"We talked about this, Sam. We call them by name. They're compelled to answer, like trained dogs. As far as demons go, Daevas may be vicious, but they are not especially bright." Lilly reassures him. Usually Sam counts on Dean's reassurance, knows it's there the same way he knows English, knows how to read, knows how to swallow, but he's afraid lately. Afraid of his connection to the demon, afraid he's somehow in the path of something stronger than all of them.

"And you're sure Eddie has the right names." Dean demands.

"I'm sure. He's a creep, but he's reliable." Once the demon had been exorcised, Eddie managed to give them the information before passing out. Lilly had given him a quick examination before they left him on the bed, phoning in an anonymous 911 call.

Dean nods acceptance. Sam should be more grateful that Lilly and Dean have come to at least a temporary truce. He would be, but the sight of the black glaring eyes is burned on his brain and the questions swirl. _What does the demon want with me? What plans is Dad interrupting? _

"Why didn't it just kill us?" That one slips out of his mouth. It takes him a split second to realize he has spoken, but once he does the rest just slides out after it, like a torrent. "The demon could have just killed us all, why didn't it?"

"I don't know." Lilly concedes. "Depends. Maybe it was planning to. Maybe it didn't know _we'd_" she gestures to herself and Kristen "be there, usually they send more than one after any of us." He's dreading the next words, but sure enough she says them. "But I think it's more likely that it didn't know that _you'd_ be there. I don't think it wanted to hurt you." And now the bandage is torn off and the wound is open and exposed to the air.

Sam is sure Dean is about to cut her off, shut down the conversation, but she doesn't give him a chance, "Judging by it's interest in you, the demon's plans, the ones your father is interrupting, include you somehow. But right this second, Sam, it doesn't matter. It only matters we stop them." There is something about Lilly's tone, the sureness, the way it doesn't entertain contradiction that makes her sound like John and Sam understands why Dean listens to her when she speaks this way.

"She's right." As if on cue with Sam's thoughts, Dean agrees. "Right now, we just gotta kill the damn things and get them off Dad's ass. After that we can analyze it to death, OK?"

Sam's agitation has no where to go, except out of his mouth, "What if we do kill them? Then what? What's to say the demon won't just send more after Dad?"

"It can't just pull your father's location out of thin air, Sam. It's why it had to lure him in the first place." She squeezes his shoulder and he wants more than anything to believe her. "Killing the Daevas will give him enough time to get out of there."

"What if there are more than two?" He's already asked these questions, he knows they've covered all the bases, but he can't stop himself.

She answers him patiently, academically re-treading old ground. "One, Eddie would have heard and he'd have been happy to sell us more information. Two, there really isn't a need. Two Deavas are more than enough to do the job of killing one man and keeping that in mind, three, these things aren't easy to control, even for a powerful demon. No need to increase the risk."

"What if the demon shows up to finish the job in case they can't? It wants Dad out of the way, why doesn't it just do it itself?" Sam is getting increasingly frantic. He knows they're right, he knows he needs to calm down and focus, but the restlessness is overwhelming.

"Your father is clearly a threat to it." Kristen speaks up. "It's sending other creatures to do its dirty work, which means it doesn't want to confront John itself. It's afraid of him. That's good."

The thing that finally calms Sam down, the thing that has always calmed Sam down, is the sight of Dean calm. Kristen's words spread like a light across Dean's face and suddenly there is hope. The demon is afraid of John.

As old as Sam gets, as grown as he likes to think himself, as often as he throws Dean's obedience, his devotion to his Dad, in his brother's face, Sam understands it. There is a kind of hero worship he feels for both the older Winchesters. He's resented it for so long that it takes something this huge to remind him that it exists for a reason.

The warehouse comes into view and Lilly leans forward from the back seat. "It should happen pretty quickly once we've sent out the transmission. I need to know you're OK, Sam. You've seen for yourself how fast and dangerous they are. If you can't…"

"He's fine." Dean chimes in and looks Sam in the eye, "Isn't he." It's not a question.

Sam nods, his brother's voice bolsters him, "Let's finish this."


	18. Chapter 18

It does start quickly. And violently. The Daevas appear within minutes and they sense Sam and Dean right away. Unfinished business.

They see only the first. Lilly and Kristen move around it, silently in a choreographed kind of way. Dean and Sam take up their positions at angles to each other, guns loaded with the polished iron bullets, ready to draw it's attention and attack. The first one lunges for Dean. He catches it in the throat with three quick rounds and it rears back. Lilly steps forward and beheads it with a single fierce swing of her broadsword. She kicks the head from the body and motions to Dean to salt and burn it. Better safe than sorry.

He kicks its head further into a safer corner and pulls the salt from his pocket, "Damn those things can move."

"Shh." Lilly cuts out his profanity and muttering. She and Kristen and Sam stand perfectly still, each in their respective pool of dark shadow. Lilly covers Dean, stands between him and the space that somewhere holds the second Daeva. She feels the flame flare up behind her and relaxes. The thing will be repelled by the light and heat and away from Dean. They had thought about flames and lights and using them to corner the creatures, but there are too many windows, it would attract too much attention and so they rely on movement and provocation.

The second is not so easy to find. It moves quickly, circling them repetitively. They mostly hear it rather than see it and it is half an hour before anyone is close enough to determine where it actually is. The movement is so fast it would be easy to convince herself she is just imagining it, too anxious to fight it to control her imagination. But she knows better. It is there, it is fucking with them. They may be predator and prey, the Daevas may not be much more than animals, but even cats like to play with mice before they kill them.

Something isn't right. Looks shoot back and forth between Kristen and Lilly. Daevas are fast, but it seems like this one is everywhere at once. She feels the air move past her left cheek and her hand moves faster than sound. A small iron knife flies through the air and hits it's mark. The thing howls and Sam and Kristen have found it. It hisses, it is angry, cornered. It is a fighter, isn't built to run away and so it attacks them blindly, ferociously and relentlessly. Sam gets too close and though it moves too quickly to see, a line of blood appears along his arm.

"Sam." Dean tries to rush to him, but Lilly holds him back.

"Stay still, it's trying to draw us to it."

"He's bleeding."

"I'm fine, Dean." Sam's voice echoes loudly, he's still drawing it to him.

It goes on like this. Something brushes past Sam, past Dean. Kristen is silent, but precise slashing movements mean it gets close to her as well. Even the infrared glasses don't help when they are moving this quickly. Neither Lilly nor Kristen is able to take a decent swipe at it. It will be light in a few hours time and at this instant it is conceivable to them that it could take at least as long as that to finish it off. Sam finally sees it. He and Kristen are on either side of it, he signals Lilly who is facing it without realizing.

"Dean, get behind me. Shoot when I drop." He nods.

She charges the Daeva keeping its attention from Kristen. She stops short and falls to her knees, letting Dean take his shot. It is wounded, but lunges forward rather than falling back. Kristen swings, but it moves ahead of the path of her sword and avoids so much as a scratch on its neck. Lilly waits on her knees for it to get close enough and plunges her sword through it's torso, twisting and lifting, gutting it alive.

There is blood all over both of them and Lilly slips while she tries to stand. She cracks her head on the concrete and scrambles to get to her feet and finish the job, but she only slips and struggles. She can't get to her sword out and finish the job, her arms are occupied keeping the thing from taking her head off. _Where the hell is Dean?_ Now she knows why things feel wrong. From her angle on the floor she sees the third one move in.

"Kris, behind you." She yells and watches it pick up speed. And head straight for Sam.


	19. Chapter 19

The plan had been reasonably simple. Sam and Dean draw them out then Lilly and Kristen finish them off. Not too detailed, too many details meant too many places where things could go wrong, just do whatever it takes to get their heads off. Dean had found himself agreeing with Lilly and Kristen, grudgingly, and only since Lilly and Kristen had both actually killed Daevas before, that he would to stick to the Daughter to which he was assigned and just do what she said.

It had worked well against the first. It had worked well tracking the second. It had gone out the window entirely the instant the third Daeva appeared out of nowhere and set its sights on Sam.

"Sam!" He screams as the Daeva shoves Kristen violently out of the way, sends her flying to the side and heads for Sam. He slips on the blood spilled from the second one but keeps going, throws himself toward his brother with all the grace of a toddler working out how to use his legs. He hears something fall behind him, senses Kristen go flying past him, but his attention is entirely focused on Sam.

He can't run fast enough, his legs can't work hard enough. He sees the Daeva close in and knows there is no way he'll get to Sam first. And Sam can't see it coming, the light reflecting from the high windows is just enough to hide the fucker from view and Sam can't see it at first, doesn't see it until it is within a yard of him. The blood drains from his little brother's face and Dean knows he can see it now, standing at its full height in front of him. Sam has to crane his neck up to look it in the eye. Sam fakes left, moves right, tries to outmaneuver it, but it follows his little brother's movements as though it reads his mind.

"Go right, Sammy!" Dean yells and almost eats his own heart when his little brother doesn't move, he's suddenly frozen in place. It walks up to Sam practically non-chalantly and throws him easily against a beam. He watches his little brother fight to stay on his feet, spinning to face it. The Daeva moves slowly now, practically ambling and Sam raises his gun to it. Dean watches him, poised to fire, his back against the beam using it for support. But Sam stops, doesn't make a move to fire, he just stares. The Daeva doesn't move either, it just stands there, pins his brother with its gaze. Then it starts to make a noise, a low incoherent muttering and Sam is paralyzed against the post. Not paralyzed, Dean thinks, mesmerized. The Daeva just stands there, its mouth moves, Sam stares, Dean himself is frozen in place half way between the movement he hears behind him and Sam.

This all takes place in less time than it takes for Dean to draw two breaths. But it feels like a lifetime has passed and Dean suddenly shakes himself back to the task at hand. "Sam, around the pole and then toward me." He raises the gun toward the Daeva. His voice is enough to snap Sam out of it and the younger brother moves around the pole at the same time Dean takes three well aimed shots and yells, "Come and get me you bitch." The three rounds hit their mark and it turns to do just that.

Faster than he could have imagined the Daeva is on him, swipes a claw along his chest as it pins him to the ground, tearing his skin, his flesh. _Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe_, _don't stop breathing, don't pass out._ It pins his arms to the concrete beneath him, crushing him at the elbows. It could rip his heart right out. It could rip his throat right open. But it doesn't. It toys with him. He thinks maybe something like a smile crosses it's face. _It has a face_, it occurs to him in a twisted, dreamlike instant. A face like a wolf, with eyes something close to human but teeth and skin like he's never seen before. Black, smooth, like shark skin, maybe.

It bends to regard him, tilts its head to the right, then the left, breathes rotting and rank into his face. Dean may be torn to shreds, may bleed to death or the smell might make him choke on his own vomit. Or his heart might just crash through the gaping wound on his chest, it's beating so hard. _I really didn't think this through._

The Deava kneels harder on Dean's arms, crushing him further into the floor and bends its head back toward his face. It grabs his jaw with one _hand? Paw? What the fuck is this thing?_ It runs a claw along the vein bulging from his throat, hisses something that might be a language. It occurs to him that he's still clutching the gun, knows he still has half a magazine full of rounds, so he lets it play with him for a second or two while he wrenches his wrist toward it. _Don't shoot yourself_, is the only coherent message his brain sends to his hands and empties the magazine into the Daeva's side. Though it shudders and jerks and leaves sharp cuts along his jaw and neck with each shot, it's still stronger, still pinning him, still playing with his throat. And now it's just angry.

_Didn't think this through_ is an understatement, he was running on instinct. Protect Sam. Dean senses more than sees a flame rise up somewhere behind him and if he thought this thing was mad before, he knows it's mad now. The regard in the creature's eyes morphs in an instant to rage. The international symbol of you're about to die. The Daeva clutches, grips, squeezes his jaw harder and holds his head immobile, it favours the side full of bullets just a little, but it still raises its arm, spreads its claws and Dean knows it's lights out.


	20. Chapter 20

Sam circles the post and almost loses his footing, but recovers in enough time to almost lose his heart through his throat. Dean lies on the floor, Daeva on his chest pinning him to the ground. Lilly and Kristen are covered in blood and ripping two parts of the other Daeva apart from each other, flames dancing up from the bits of corpse before the women even drop them.

He runs toward Dean when the shots ring out and his breath is stolen when he realizes the gun did nothing more than make the monster angrier. It raises its arm in tall powerful arc above Dean's body and the claws practically gleam. Like a horror movie time slows, Sam's legs don't work fast enough, his body doesn't move fast enough, he sees the blood already flowering across Dean's chest and in an instant realizes he will not get there in time.

But there is nothing in his mind, nothing in his consciousness nothing in his unconscious response that entertains stopping before he rips the thing off his brother. The Daeva's arm swings down and low and begins to move across the space above Dean's throat when it's jerked back the way it came. The Daeva flies, spiraling in mid air, away from Dean, and in that instant Sam has no idea what is more terrifying: his brother bleeding on the floor a half inch away from having his throat slit, or the rage plain on his sister's blood soaked face.

Kristen rushes with Sam toward Dean, spares the older man a cursory glance and, when it's plain the he can move under his own power, she fluidly changes her direction toward Lilly, without breaking her stride. Sam's never seen a person move so fast. She runs past him, fifty pound sword ready and swinging like nothing heavier than a cheerleading baton. The growls of fury that escape her and Lilly's throats chill him. They seem to chill the Daeva, which is running mindlessly away from both women.

They circle it, one moving it toward the other. Sam kneels by Dean's side, presses his hand across the bleeding gash on his chest, slick and hot and sickening.

"Go Sammy. I'm fine." Dean winces and hisses through his teeth.

Sam looks around him, tracking their movements and stands abruptly, dragging Dean to the relative safety of the closest wall. He sits his brother up, checks that Dean's got enough pressure on his wound and runs toward the sound of the Daughters and Daeva.

The movement is swift and fierce and easily outstrips Kristen and Lilly's afternoon display of violence. They bait and switch and attack and corner, but the Daeva is too quick and too savvy now about their methods to fall for a trap, too desperate to stop moving for a second. Sam circles from behind, enough distance to keep him from looking like a threat and positions himself behind the creature.

Lilly catches his eye and then Kristen's. It's as though there are clear voices in each other's head because they move singly, as one unit, in an almost choreographed movement. Sam begins screaming and charging the Daeva, Kristen runs toward Sam between him and the Daeva, placing herself in its path, Lilly charges from behind, sword arm outstretched, ready to slash.

It gains on Kristen, and Sam runs toward her faster and faster as she slows her pace and lets the creature catch up. She turns 180 degrees on her heel and suddenly faces it, covering Sam, sword pointed out from her abdomen. It crashes into her, the momentum carries both it and Kristen, joined by the impaling sword, back into Sam and the three fly vast feet across the floor, Sam's back finally crashing into the corner of a stack of jagged skids.

They squirm and struggle and Sam's sees Kristen's free arm clutching at the arm of the Daeva, keeping it flush with her body, he feels her squirm above him twisting and turning the sword into the creature's body. Sam snakes his opposite hand out from between them and grabs the Daeva's other arm, trying weakly to pin it flat. His grip is nothing like Kristen's and the Daeva slips away easily angrily, it's arms recoiling back from the grip.

And then its arm is flying, disembodied away from the rest of it. There is silence for an instant as the Daeva's eyes follow the path of it's arm through the air. It howls and screeches and struggles in Kristen's grip and when it throws it's head back in pain and frustration, Lilly's sword sails through it's neck as though it were no more dense than the air surrounding it.

The Daeva's body slumps instantly, pinning Kristen and Sam beneath it and a mad, frantic Lilly rips the body from them in a one handed fluid motion. Two hundred pounds of literally dead weight float through the air like a balloon and land with a sloppy thud a few feet away. Sam breathes heavily, in shock, unaware for a full moment that Kristen has already launched herself off him and is pouring lighter fluid and salt over the lonely head. A burst of flame from the body spurts up a second later and Sam sighs long and hard in relief.

"Go to Dean." Lilly barks. She and Kristen are back to back, swords up, concentrating intently. Waiting. Listening. _Is there a fourth?_, Sam barely thinks as he skids to the floor next to his brother.

"Holy shit." Dean grimaces.

"You can say that again." Sam's hands work over Dean's body, scanning for injuries, testing the flesh to make sure Dean is whole.

"I don't think I can." His big brother gasps and laughs and slumps.

"We're clear." Kristen shouts and then groans.

Lilly and Kristen find their way to the men, Kristen leaning heavily on her cousin, and Lilly motions Sam over to carry the blonde's weight. Sam takes the load and Lilly kneels immediately beside Dean to examine him, sharply and swiftly. She fires questions and Dean answers in, exchanging no more than a word or two.

Sam doesn't know what's colder, the paleness of Dean's blood-lost face or the paleness of Lilly's anger.


	21. Chapter 21

Sam holds Kristen up in the back seat. She's broken a rib, probably two. The weight of the Daeva and the pressure of the sword hilt on her chest when it landed on them is the culprit. Lilly watches him help her while he favours what must be a huge and flowering bruise on his own back. She drives back toward the motel, glancing at Dean from time to time as he keeps the pressure up on his wound and tries unsuccessfully to reach his father.

"Give me the phone." She snaps. She's tired of this, what the hell is wrong with that man. These men. Dean. Dean is reluctant and hurt and exhausted and she knows she should cut him some slack for the moment, but between the breaking from the plan and nearly getting them all killed she reckons she's entitled to be at the end of her rope.

They wait at a red light and she forces herself to look at him, fixes him with a glare when he hasn't turned over the phone a minute later, "Of all your choices in this moment, surly and stubborn are not the wisest."

He hands her the phone and she's not sure, but she thinks a look of censured puppy crosses his face for just a breath. She hits re-dial and doesn't quite calm herself before speaking.

"Winchester! This is Lilly Rayne. We've just killed three of the Daevas sent for you. I _hope_ that's all of them, but it would be _lovely_ to know for sure. So if you wouldn't mind, drop the black ops bullshit and get in touch with your sons. If we don't hear _from you_, that you're safe, in the next 12 hours, we'll come for you." She snaps the phone shut and tosses it back in Dean's lap. She curses herself, hating the sarcasm, annoyed by her inability to even pretend to be civil or professional.

They arrive at the motel and wait before they leave the car to make sure the coast is clear. It's 4AM, but this isn't the part of town where decent people can be relied upon to be asleep. This isn't the part of town where decent people could be found. Sam helps Kristen into the motel room first and Lilly bundles Dean in a blanket and prepares to follow them a moment later.

"I'm not a baby. I can do this myself." He begins to protest, winces at each movement.

"Shut up." She continues to swaddle his chest closed to control the bleeding. She continues to let her anger bubble and simmer. Each slight movement to bind the wound, each hiss that escapes Dean's lips, each time he holds his breath in anticipation of another jolt of pain send shots, bolts of fear through her stomach. Which just makes her more angry. She feels like she does when Issy breaks out of her grasp and runs toward traffic. Her heart in her throat; her adrenaline pumps until Issy is safely back in her arms; she lets fly the sharp tongued censures born of the pure fear of disaster _Don't ever do that again, Issabelle_. The sight of Dean lying on the ground, bleeding, ripped from her the same terror, the same instant response.

Lilly ushers Dean into the bathroom and sits him against the wall straddling the bathtub. Sam trails behind her and she sends him to the other room with bandages and instructions to tape Kristen's ribs. She has no doubt he's more than capable. She turns her attention back to Dean, worried when he starts to pale and sweat that the blood loss will force them to a hospital. She knows no one in the Seattle medical community, there are no Legacy familiars on staff at any hospital here. Explanations get too tricky.

She sits facing him, one foot in the tub, one on the floor and unwraps him from the blanket, takes off his jacket. He winces painfully and jerks away, insists he can do it himself.

_I will not lose my temper, I will not lose my temper, I will not lose my temper_. She repeats the silent mantra as she sets her first aid kit up on the closed toilet seat beside them. She doesn't look him in the eye, all the easier not to take the bait, busies herself double gloving and begins to cut his black T-shirt off at the hem.

"Hey, I like this shirt." He squirms and winces and squirms some more.

She sticks her fingers through the gapping hole left by the Daevas and simply rips down from there in response.

"Oops." Sarcasm seems the way to go. She cuts the shirt off and discards the fabric to the floor, examines his chest. She soaks the wound with antiseptic and distilled water from a squirt bottle trying to get a better look at the damage. She cleans the wound area and removes an inch long shard of the Daeva's claw, drops it into a clean specimen bottle and sets it aside to look at later. Dean takes in a sharp gulp of air and there are tears in his eyes from the sting of the liquid and her ministration.

"This won't take long." She removes her gloves into the garbage and reaches for a bottle of clear fluid and a syringe. She sees Dean's open fearful eyes follow her movements and would be amused for a second, if her heart weren't still her throat, that the big tough guy is afraid of needles.

"It's fine. I've had worse." His voice is breathy and unconvincing.

"Macho bullshit." She mutters to herself and lays the full syringe on the sterile cloth beside them.

"Sammy can stitch me up, you and Kristen can get out of here if you need to." Dean grits his teeth.

"We're not going anywhere." She responds, flatly. She shifts herself forward, closer to him, their legs fitting together like teeth on a zipper. She re-gloves and lays the suture kit open across their laps and deliberately adopts her surgical persona while she preps. Behaves like this is any other ER trauma. Doesn't spare a thought to the fact she's about to stitch up a six inch long gash across her little brother's chest. The one he got throwing himself into the path of a furious Daeva to save Sam. Grudgingly and silently she concedes she knows how he feels. Grudgingly admits to herself she understands that fear, grudgingly sees that Dean's first and only devotion is to his brother. Sam is first, before anyone else, clearly before himself.

"I'm going to give you a local, it's just Lidocaine." She can't look him in the eye yet.

"I don't need it." He hisses, "Just do it. I can handle it. I can stitch _myself _up." He repeats for nine hundredth time.

"You don't have to." Her voice is exasperated and pleading, angry and incredulous. Not for the first time Lilly thinks she just does not understand this boy. She stops deliberately and searches his face as though she'll find an explanation there, as though his life will be written in the lines around his eyes or the set of his mouth. And it is, she knows it is. It's just in a language she doesn't speak yet. He looks back at her, and she's not surprised that he's staring her down like this is some sort of contest, something he'll come out on top of, another struggle he needs to take on. So she makes her face blank, unchallenging but unrelenting, and she waits to see the ever so slight concession in his face before she makes several quick injections in the wound and along its border.

The Daeva's claw was knife blade sharp and the surgeon in Lilly is pleased that the wound is straight, clean, will heal easily. The big sister in Lilly, this new part of her, is enraged that anything would dare touch him and she wants to go back to the warehouse and reenact the whole thing so she can kill it twice more and this time before it lays a hand on her brother.

"Two rows of sutures. One is internal to keep the muscle together. Both sets should dissolve on their own, but you can pull whatever's left of the external ones out in about ten days, if the skin is fully healed. I think I've spared you a serious scar." The suturing is easy and she almost smiles when Dean seems impressed by the speed with which she finishes.

"You that good?" She can't tell if Dean is being a jackass or he's trying to sound impressed.

"Yes. I am." She looks at him and still can't read his expression, "I'm sure you know the drill. Keep it dry, change the dressing everyday and I'll leave you some antibiotics in case it starts to get infected." She cuts gauze and tape and patches up the wound.

"I'm sorry." She almost doesn't hear him.

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry. I should have stuck to the plan. I should have done what you said. Kristen wouldn't have gotten hurt, I wouldn't have needed this." he waves vaguely at the bandages.

She sighs and busies herself cleaning up the suture kits and first aid detritus. She doesn't know what to say to him yet. Doesn't know what to do with this anger and fear and frustration. Doesn't trust herself to talk. Their relationship is already so tense, so marginal, so painfully awkward. She swings her leg over the tub walks out of the bathroom.


	22. Chapter 22

Dean sits in the bathroom a little while before steeling himself to get up and rejoin them. Sam's alone, changing into a Tshirt when he slinks back in.

"You OK?" He flinches at the sight of the already purple bruise spreading across Sam's back.

"Nothing's broken, I'll be fine." Sam answers, "You?" The taller man sinks down onto his bed scrubbing his face in his hands.

"I've had worse." Dean jokes lamely.

"You think he'll call?" Sam's voice is exhausted.

"I don't know." Dean honestly has no idea.

"Lilly's helping Kristen clean up and get into bed." Sam offers motioning toward the closed door between their rooms. "How bad did she ream you out?"

"She didn't. She didn't say anything." Dean, now that he has a second to think about it, can't believe it.

"She's not so bad, Dean." Sam offers. Dean can't think. He's too exhausted, the well familiar loop of self recrimination has started in his head, his chest hurts like hell, his body has begun to ache everywhere and he can't take his eyes off the cell phone.

"I think she's probably just saving it up." Dean tries to sound non-chalant.

"Dean.." Sam interrupts, but doesn't get much of a chance.

"And I deserve it Sam. I disobeyed orders." Dean clears his throat, "That thing was charging her, and I left her alone with it. I could have gotten her killed. You got hurt, Kristen got hurt." He takes a breath and takes his seat across from his brother, "But I saw that thing going for you and _I knew_, I knew none of us would get there on time. I'm not sorry. I couldn't let it get you. So if she wants to rip a strip off me, fine. She's deserves to, but I'm not sorry. Not if it means you're alive."

"I'm not going to tear a strip off you." Her voice is quiet, but it startles him nonetheless. She walks toward them and sits beside Sam. "And for the record, you got yourself hurt too." She raises her eyebrow at him. "It was thoroughly idiotic, what you did. But the Daevas are dead and we're not."

"You're not angry?" Sam asks.

"Oh, I'm angry. I'm furious. We had a plan. A good one. A tested one. And you fucked it off. We fight them the way we do for a reason, and before you say a word, we've been at this a damn sight longer than you have. I'm frustrated and I would _love_ to, what did you call it, Sam? Ream you out, if I thought it would do any good. But it won't. I understand what you did Dean. And whether you like it, or believe me, I get it and I don't blame you for it. Just don't ever fucking well do it again."

"I'll always put Sam first." Dean answers plainly. "He's my little brother, it's my job to keep him safe."

Sam, for once, stays quiet, doesn't make any protestations about how he's a grown man and doesn't need Dean to look after him like he's a child.

"I don't want anything to happen to either of you either." She counters.

Dean has no time to think of what to say, his phone vibrates and he lunges for it, gripping instantly for his chest.

_All clear._

_32°57′56″N__96°42′57″W_

He feels the blood rush from his face. He could cry, but he won't. The relief is so sudden, so shaking that he must look faint, because Lilly is at his side in an instant.

"I'm fine." He has no energy to shake off her prodding at his chest. "Dad's fine." He tosses Sam the phone.

"Are you fucking kidding me? Co-oridnates?" He can't deal with this right this second. Sam's constant unforgiving anger at their father is too much. He stands up and walks out of the room, cold night air meaningless to him except as a jolt to get his mind going.

"Dean!" He hears her call after him and keeps walking, hugging his arms around his body. He's at least a hundred yards away from the motel before he realizes he has no shirt on.

"Dean!" She catches up to him in no time and falls silently into step, handing him a sweater.

He stops and stares at the sweater then at her. She's still covered in blood. The sky is starting to lighten before sunrise and she's standing in the driveway of a motel, having stitched him up, tended to Kristen and to Sam and she still hasn't so much as washed the Daeva blood out of her hair when she's out here tending to him again.

"What are you doing out here?" He just doesn't understand what's happening anymore. He's fading. He's trying to yell, trying to be tough, but he needs 24 hours sleep, a bottle of Jack and a decent fuck to even get to where he can think about feeling normal.

"Trying to keep you from getting arrested for indecency." She takes the hand he's holding the sweater in and urges it toward him again.

"I don't know how to do this." Slips out of him.

"Put your head through the big hole and your arms through the dangling bits." She tries to look serious, but she's exhausted too, it looks to him.

"I don't know what to do either." She admits. "But we have to sort this out. This clearly won't be the last time we work together. We don't have to be friends, we don't have to like each other, but we have to trust each other enough to keep from getting ourselves killed."

He looks back down at the sweater and starts to shake from the cold, fumbles trying to put it on and finds himself slightly disappointed that she doesn't move to help him. Finally pulling it over his head, he says the only thing that springs to his mind.

"The Daeva looked like it was _talking_ to Sam. Why didn't it just kill him when it had the chance?"


	23. Chapter 23

They all sleep well into the afternoon. Waking one by one, they wander back and forth between their rooms, amble aimlessly, drink coffee and avoid any big discussion or post mortem for the time being.

They dress. Dean packs their gear. Kristen makes flight arrangements. Lilly rounds up all the bloody clothes and first aid to dispose of. Everyone is black and blue and mostly silent. Sam watches them all. There are so many questions. So much aching inside him. So much terrifying and angering and blossoming in him and he just wants someone to tell him what to think. He needs some book to explain to him what to do. He needs a library, an artifact, a scroll or just something to focus his mind, a place to start that isn't spinning, isn't shifting beneath his feet.

Lilly leaves and is back in half an hour. She brings bags of food and an envelope of money and hands it to Dean with a black T-shirt and a smirk on her face. There seems to be a fragile, lucent peace between them, but Dean is still too cold around her, still too defensive for Sam to hope that it is more than just their fatigue. They trade looks, sneak them at Sam, back at each other. He thinks he knows what they are thinking.

They all sit down to eat and stare at each other. Stare past each other. They will go their separate ways in a few hours, but for now they just inhabit each other's space, like the morning after a night everyone has stayed up, confessing, connecting, a party where something big has happened and no one is quite prepared to let it go just yet.

Sam starts slowly, not jumping straight to the point, but he's had all the silence he can stand, "What should I do about the laptop?"

"Nothing." Kristen and Lilly answer in unison.

Kristen continues, "It's either Derek or the whole Legacy watching you. You don't want to tip either of them off. If Derek's watching you it's probably at your father's asking, or to keep an eye out on your contact with Lilly."

"Or?" Sam prompts.

"Or, it could also be that he and your father both know something about the Demon..."

"About what these plans are." Sam finishes. "About what's happening to me?"

"Possibly." Lilly agrees, "In any case, if they know we know about the trace, they may cover their tracks."

"Yeah, since they've been so big with the truth so far." Dean snorts. Sam can't believe it, can't believe Dean has said anything even remotely like disagreeing with his father. He's impressed for a second, then his stomach starts to sink. The repercussions for the three of them if Dean stops being the good little solider are too much to contemplate right that second.

"So then what? What do we do?" Dean asks.

"Business as usual, except I go back and I hack the server and find out what kind of information they've been compiling about your surfing habits. If they or he, are watching you some other way." She runs her hands through her hair.

"What about his journals?" Dean asks.

Lilly takes a breath, "I had hoped to let my father explain _himself_, but I've run out of patience."

Sam hopes against hope that John just asked Derek to watch him. It would be like him, wouldn't it? To watch from the shadows, to keep an eye out silently, like his surreptitious trips to Stanford. He wants so much to believe that, but after Max Miller, after all the visions, the Demon's fingerprints on all of them, he just can't.

"What's happening to me?" Sam asks quietly. Asks the logical question, the insane question, the one on everyone's minds. He feels Dean tense beside him and lays what he hopes is a reassuring hand on Dean's arm. "I need to understand what's happening to me. What these plans are. If I know what's going on, maybe it'll help us find the Demon. You know, if I'm tied to it in some way."

"Sam…" Dean starts and it's all Sam can do not to roll his eyes at his brother's wishful thinking, willful ignorance.

"We don't know that you're involved, Sam." Kristen offers. Sam knows she's trying to be kind, reassuring, but she eventually concedes under his stare, "Ok, we don't know _how_ you're involved."

"The Daeva could have killed me yesterday, could have just torn my heart out but it didn't. It held itself back." Sam's exasperation rises.

"For all we know it was just playing with its food." Dean tries to joke.

"It was talking to me." Sam explains painfully, like he's talking to children, like this should be obvious to everyone and can-we-all-stop-trying-to-make-it-feel-better, "I couldn't understand it, but it was trying to talk to me. It was, I don't know, like it was hypnotizing me, I couldn't move, it was trying to say something, I'm sure of it."

There is a long silence. Sam looks from face to face, just wanting one of them to say it out loud. Lilly comes as close as anyone is going to, "Sam, we don't know. We just don't know. But the instant any of us knows anything we all will. Agreed?"

Lilly's cellphone rings, shrilly breaking the quiet.

"Great." She mutters and excuses herself. "Uncle William…" is all Sam hears as she disappears behind the closed door of her room.

"She had to report in." Kristen explains. "The thing possessing Eddie was sent for us, so it knows the Daughters are involved now. The rest of us will need to know to keep our eyes out."

"You're all targets now?" Dean asks.

Sam's anxiety is cranked up yet again. "Is it going to come for you now too?" Sam feels like he's going to jump out of his skin. Images of Max Miller, of Jess burning on the ceiling, of Dean's brains being blown out have been following him relentlessly for weeks, but they all want his attention right that second.

"Maybe." Kristen's tone is flat, all business. "Not necessarily. We are_…known_….among their kind. They tend not to like our interference because it never ends well for them. It's more likely it will try to stay off our radar."

They talk the possibilities back and forth for a while. And despite Kristen's matter-of-factness, Sam is unconvinced.

"How are you so calm about this?" He demands.

"We're on a lot of shit lists, Sam. You get used to it."

"Guys," Kristen's voice is soft, "It's a rare thing for one of us to come across a Demon that doesn't know who we are already, and the threat we pose to them. And still, we are pretty much never attacked by Demons."

"And certainly not by this one. Not yet." Lilly re-enters the room. "This isn't arrogance. The name of the Daughters is a bad omen among them. They don't come for us."

"Mom was a Daughter and it came for her." Dean's voice is low, full of a hidden fear that Sam is one of the few people in the world recognize.

"She was alone, Dean. One of our strengths is our numbers." Lilly tries to reassure him. "There are twelve of us. No one demon could take us all at once, and no group of them is going to work together."

"What if they did? What if they banded together?" Sam asked.

"Then we are at war and this Demon is just one of a billion problems."

They are quiet for a time. Finish their food. Finish packing. They check out and say their goodbyes in the parking lot. Lilly and Dean climb into their cars and Sam and Kristen hug for a moment longer.

"Sam, we'll do whatever we can. She will do everything she can."

"That scares me. It scares me you're in its way now too."

"It never came for Lilly and it could have when she was young and not as strong. If it knew Aunt Laura…sorry, _Mary_… it sure as hell knows her heir."

"It knows me too. And it's coming now." Sam reminds her ominously. There is nothing else to say.

THE END - Their story continues in _Broken Treaties_.


End file.
